


straight up

by Trojie



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Anal Fingering, Angst, Blow Jobs, Crack, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Porn With Plot, Revenge Era, Sexual orientation confusion, Tour Bus Sex, Warped Tour, minor Ray Toro/OCs, with driveby cameos by half of Fall Out Boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 15:41:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12302283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: Ray will one day blame years of the kind of friendship that involves one person opening the other person up to a host of new, exciting life experiences they wouldn't otherwise have got, and the second person in return spending a lot of time hovering in the ED trying to remember the street names of colourful pills, for what happens after he walks in on Gerard in their hotel room.





	straight up

**Author's Note:**

> [While you're reading, listen along with the AWESOME mix by burnedbytherain](https://26days.livejournal.com/96891.html)
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to LadySmutterella for encouraging me to write this in the first place and then to put it in for BBB, and for her beta work on it <3

If you'd asked Ray Toro ten minutes ago what the most shocking thing he'd ever walked in on a bandmate doing was, he'd have said, 'ha ha wouldn't you like to know?' Then he would have changed the subject, because he's not the kind of dick who tells the press that shit.

But he'd have been thinking of one time in the really early days. He'd come into the one shitty motel room they were all sharing, just before they were supposed to leave for a soundcheck, and found Gerard and Mikey having just taken so much MDMA they could see sixty-five different dimensions but not walk in a straight line. In the corner, Frank had been hurling the entire contents of his stomach and probably actually his actual stomach as well into a trashcan. That memory was kind of difficult to top, if you were looking for clusterfucks.

If you'd asked him _now_ …

'Fucking - shit, close the door, man,' wheezes Gerard from the floor on the other side of the bed, where he fell a second ago because he was startled. In fairness to him, he probably hadn't expected Ray to come barrelling into their hotel room to change his shirt. In fairness to _Ray_ he definitely hadn't been expecting Gerard to be fucking himself on his own hand when he did so. 

This whole situation is clearly a shock to both of them.

Ray closes the door obediently and then realises he should have closed it with himself on the _other_ side and so he opens it again to correct that mistake right at the second Gerard stands up without his pants on and there's a split second of full-frontal Gerard, wide open hotel door, and shellshocked Ray before Gerard throws himself on the bed and Ray slams the door again and he's _still_ on the wrong fucking side and -

'If you open that door again, Toro, I will beat you to death with a shoe and I won't even put my fucking pants back on first,' says Gerard with his face mashed into a pillow. Ray guiltily takes his hand off the door handle and doesn't know what to do next. 

'Just - do whatever it was you were gonna do, and get out,' Gerard says. It's like he's psychic. He pulls his head up and looks at Ray. 'And if you were coming up here to get _me_ , dude, we've got half an hour, unknot your panties. It's not like we're playing Madison Square Garden.'

Ray edges past him and goes for his bag. When he's got his head down staring at his clothes and with his hair blessedly in his face so he can't see or be seen, he says, 'Sorry, man. I didn't mean to interrupt your you-time.'

Gerard makes a grumpy, resigned noise. 'Whatever. Not like it was working, anyway.'

Ray sometimes speaks before he thinks. This is one of those times. 'Why not?' he says on autopilot, trying to find something that isn't an Iron Maiden shirt with a grease stain on it, and then his ears pick up what his mouth just said and he kind of wishes he could sink into the floor.

'Y'know,' says Gerard, and there's probably a world of unspoken commentary in the way he sighs, but Ray really, really does not know. Like, he's not some kind of naive virgin, he knows about fingering, but he hasn't exactly tried it on himself, so. And he tries not to pass comment on things he has no experience with. He makes a noncommittal grunt and yanks at something he thinks might be an actual clean shirt lurking in the depths of his bag. 

The noises behind him suggest Gerard has stood up again and is putting his jeans back on - there's the jangling of a belt buckle. 'Fuck, I wish I could just -' Gerard blows all the breath out through his nose frustratedly. 'It's a lot fuckin' easier to go out and get laid without worrying about "consequences" and shit when you're wasted, is all I'm saying.'

Ray is kind of out of his depth here. Fortunately Gerard keeps talking, so he doesn't have to come up with anything to say. 

'I just,' there's the sound of the bathroom door opening, and Gerard emptying basically the entirely of his makeup bag onto the vanity. 'I don't wanna do something dumb, but - it just calms me down, y'know?'

There's a pause. 

'Ray? You okay, dude?'

Ray stands up with the clean shirt and pulls off the old one. When the clean one is half over his head and his expression is therefore invisible, he says, 'Jacking off doesn't help?'

Tactics. Ray Toro is a master of tactics. 

By the time the shirt and his hair have both succumbed to gravity and are back in their proper place, the furious blush has stopped burning his cheeks and he can finally see Gerard, who looks like the corpse of a panda that died on its way to the prom. He's busy doing something technical to his eyeliner, staring at himself an inch away from the mirror. 'It's not the same,' he says. 'I mean yeah, it's fine, but I kinda just wanna get stuffed full.'

He says it so casually. But again, no, Ray doesn't know. He's normally more about sticking his dick into other people. Girls, y'know, if he's being specific. Things getting stuck into him are not Ray's jam. Not that he's judging or anything, it's legit, people can be into whatever they're into and it's not like putting things up your butt is in any way, like, a niche interest. It's just not Ray's interest. 

All of this goes through Ray's head in a split second and then he's standing there with his hands still pulling at the hem of his shirt watching Gerard look frustrated and sad at himself in the mirror instead of looking at Ray. 

The thing is, Ray isn't good at leaving people to be sad, and he's _really_ not good at it when it's Gerard, who is still in the whole one-day-at-a-time phase of his recovery. He's doing really fucking well, but part of Ray worries that Gerard shouldn't be on tour again this soon, particularly not fucking Warped, which is … not a healthy environment. Maybe there have been a few Gerard-less band conferences and a few resolutions made about looking out for him, picking up slack and taking weight and helping out if needed, and - 

'I could -' Ray chokes down the phrase _give you a hand_ '- help you out with that?'

Oh, so _now_ Gerard wants to look at him, apparently. 

'You what?'

Ray shrugs, and ignores the voice in the back of his head telling him he's supposed to have boundaries. 'I got fingers? And we've got …' he checks his watch, '... like, twenty minutes.'

Gerard stares at him. One of his eyebrows is making a desperate bid to achieve low Earth orbit.

Five minutes later Gerard's flat on his back on the bed, his jeans are hopefully somewhere easy to retrieve but Ray suspects they're hanging off the light fitting or something he got out of them so fast, and Ray's kinda leaning on one elbow between Gerard's thighs with a crumpled, half-empty tube of lube and what he hopes is the manly and determined expression of someone who has a fucking clue what they're doing. 

It can't be that complicated. There's only so many ways you can put your fingers inside a human being, and Ray's fingered girls before, although not in the ass. And hell, it's not like Gerard is ever shy about telling you you're doing something wrong. Or right. For what it's worth he is good at praise too. 

'Jesus,' he breathes, eyes fluttering shut. 'Fuck yeah, Ray, yeah, c'mon, harder, you can go harder, please?'

Ray bites his lip and tries to concentrate on doing a good job at fingering his friend in the ass. He keeps getting distracted by the fucking look on Gerard's face, though - he looks free, or unburdened, or _uncensored_ somehow, like he hasn't since the last time he was wasted. And that does something to Ray, puts a warm, tight feeling around his heart. 

He settles his other hand on Gerard's warm, bare hip for leverage, and goes harder, like Gerard asked. After a little while he pulls the two fingers he had in there out and adds a third, and a bunch more lube because y'know, safety first. 'Oh my god,' says Gerard, throwing an arm up over his head and bracing himself against the headboard, pushing up on his heels to fuck himself down on Ray's hand. 'Oh my fucking god, Toro, your fucking fingers, fuck. So fucking good, c'mon, more, please? Please Ray, c'mon, I'm so close -' 

Ray risks a look down and Gerard's hole looks pretty well full, stretched out red and obscene against Ray's knuckles, but Gerard's begging for it and he presumably knows his own body, so Ray figures what the hell, and starts to ease his pinky against Gerard's rim as well. 

He gets the tip of it in when Gerard makes a noise like a deflating bagpipe and comes all over his belly and the rucked-up hem of his black shirt. 

'Christ,' he says breathlessly, and suddenly Ray's got an armful of wriggly lead singer, two lead singer hands in his jeans, and he didn't even realise he was hard, but Gerard starts frantically tearing at his fly and trying to kiss him. His knee pushes between Ray's thighs and all of a sudden there's perfect, hot pressure, friction, where Ray wasn't expecting it. Before he can do anything about it, and before Gerard can actually touch him, his eyes roll back in his head and he fucking comes like a freight-train. It leaves him shaking, wrung-out, fucking horrified because that wasn't meant to happen, why did that -

Gerard is still touching him, pulling at him like he wants to - God, Ray doesn't even know. He manages to push Gerard away, but he's too fucking bewildered at the turn his life is taking and too much of his blood is still in his cock for his brain to deal with Gerard's pout, Gerard's soft hands in his hair. Gerard saying, 'c'mon, Ray, at least let me kiss you.'

He tries to pull himself together, to explain. Y'know, about the whole not into guys thing. Although the number of times interviewers have kind of slyly asked, you'd think Gerard would have got the memo by now. Ray's cool with dude-on-dude action but he's never wanted to be one of the dudes. He's not anti-gay, he's just, y'know. _Straight._ Some people are, y'know.

He wrestles Gerard down, pinning him, trying to find words.

Gerard's mumbling, resisting Ray's weight, trying to rub up against him. 'C'mon, Ray,' he says again, breathlessly, hotly. 'What are you - _c'mon,_ man.'

Ray _really_ should say something. 

Then Gerard's phone starts going off. 'Shit, soundcheck,' he says, scrambling out from under Ray and off the bed. 

Ray's fucking dazed and confused and his shirt isn't clean any more. There's foundation on one shoulder and Gerard's come smeared down the front of it, but they have to _go_ so he strips it off and scrambles back into the Iron Maiden grease stain combo instead while Gerard hops around trying to pull his jeans back on and apparently not caring that his makeup is smudged even more than usual. He, at least, can tuck in the stained bit of his shirt. 

Their set goes really well, in case you were interested. No-one seems to care about the state of Ray's shirt. Or the fact that he's walking kinda funny because his underwear is full of come.

***

The convoy rolls on after the sun's set and everyone's played their forty minutes, because the next venue's a while away, enough to make this a travel night not a debauchery night. The My Chem bus settled into the rhythm of the tour within like, two days, they're old hands at this now, and doesn't that feel weird? 

(Ray still has, like, a fucking _moment_ every so often when he remembers they're doing this on a bus and not in a van, and not just any bus, a bus that doesn't break down all the time, a bus with a goddamn studio space in it, where when he goes down the back there's his laptop and Bob's electronic drum kit and their guitars, all laid out, ready. There's a fucking microphone in there that cost more than they made in total their first two-week tour. 

They're one of the top billing bands on Warped this year. Warners has got a goddamn _film crew_ coming out to follow them around at some point on this circuit. It's fucking surreal.)

Anyway so, like, settling into the tour routine means that they're all smart enough to actually go to bed when they have the opportunity. Warped is like a military campaign - you never pass up a chance for food, a piss, or some sleep, because you don't know when it'll come up again. Travel nights are good for that though, because you can't exactly invite four other bands over to cram in and play PlayStation with you (thanks, Bob) while you're on the highway. Frank's the first one to sack out, but within like, ten minutes, they all follow him. 

Another sad and inevitable fact of touring is that you should never pass up a chance to jerk it, either. 

Ray waits until he's pretty sure the others are all either sleeping or waiting for the same thing he is - the moment of soft, calm snoring that means as long as you do it quietly you're good to go - and then he slides his hand into his PJ bottoms. 

His eyes roll up in his head almost immediately, and he shivers, bites his lip, curls his hand around himself and humps up into his own grip, wanting to make noise and forcing himself not to and kind of loving it, loving that he can't, the tiny little shiver-prickle of knowing that someone could hear him. It's kinda wrong and it's kinda dirty of him, he guesses, but he's good at being quiet. He knows he is, because more than once he's been accused of being a monk on tour, and he knows for damn sure neither Frank nor Bob would hesitate to use it as ammunition if they'd heard his me-time noises. They do it to each other and to Gerard enough, Ray has no reason to think they'd spare him. 

(Mikey's not a frequent offender on the 'jerking off noises in the bunks' thing but that's mostly because he's the all-time champion of actually hooking up on tour. Bob thinks he has mutant pheromones. Frank says he's pretty sure it's a "bass player thing", whatever that means. Gerard never volunteers an opinion on why or how, just makes vague noises about condoms when Mikey's going out.)

Ray pulls his hand back up and licks at his palm, lets himself drool over it and get sloppy and slick and warm, and shoves it back down. He doesn't move his hand much, just rocks his hips, slow and careful, half a deliberate tease and half paranoid about noise, breathing carefully through his nose so he can't let out the sounds queuing in his throat. 

He's hyperaware, though, of everything going on around him, every move, every creak, so when Gerard rolls over in the bunk opposite his, he freezes. 

It's nothing, though. Gerard's a restless sleeper, that's all. 

Gerard's bunk creaks. Creaks again. And, muffled like it's under a blanket but still loud enough for Ray to hear because Ray's listening like he's trying to nail down a chord progression, the sticky click of a plastic cap. 

Ray's dick doesn't just twitch, it jerks in his hand like his heart just sent every drop of blood in his veins south for a holiday. His head spins, his palms are sweaty and he twists, grinds himself into the mattress before he can stop himself, his body all of a sudden right on the redline.

But then Gerard makes a tiny noise and Ray forces himself to take his hand off his dick, and yanks his PJs back up. His body officially hates him but nope. That's a line. That would be too much like … like thinking of Gerard while he's jerking off. And that's both inappropriate and, y'know, not actually something that would do it for Ray. It's not like he's _into_ Gerard or something. He touched him one freaking time, that's all. Hell, he's kissed Frank at like four different parties for dares and he's never wanted to do anything except smother Frank with a pillow when it's been him jerking off at night.

Ray is straight. Dude sex noises are not his preferred masturbatory soundtrack. He smushes his pillow over his head and thinks hard about palm muting until his erection goes away. 

'Nice solo last night,' says Frank to Gerard in the morning, plastered all over his back 'helping' him make coffee. Gerard shakes him off and takes a little stage-bow, grinning sheepishly. 

Ray bends his head over his comic and thanks God he grew his hair out long enough to hide his face with.

***

Nothing is going right this morning. Not one single fucking thing. Frank picked up some twenty-four hour stomach flu and he's insisting he can play now but two hours ago he had his head in the toilet and Ray knows the techs have a trashcan by the side of the stage for him just in case it flares up again. Mikey's red P-bass won't stay in tune and he's got a second one, the black one, but the strings on that are new and it's doing basically the same thing for different reasons. 

It's sweltering fucking hot already, and Ray doesn't know who was on before them but backstage fucking stinks of sweat and body spray and just, like, general jockstrap and eau de unwashed dude. 

All of the batteries in Ray's pedals seem to have simultaneously decided to die and apparently nine-volt batteries are like unicorn shit or something in this crap-ass town, because three separate people have been sent out to find more and they're coming back empty-handed. He needs a new pedalboard, i.e. one with a working connection, but they're not made of money. On top of that, he breaks his fucking high E halfway through checking levels on I'm Not Okay and it whips round and catches him across the arm and it fucking hurts. 

A tech comes up and takes his Les Paul off him to change out the string, and he could pick up his spare but one look at Gerard tells him they need a breather. 

'Ten minutes?' he says. Asks, really, but he gets a nod from the stage manager, so that makes it official. 'Go get some fucking coffee, Mikes, seriously,' because Mikey looks on the point of murder-suicide over his slipping D string. Bob collars him and drags him away. Frank makes a beeline for that trashcan, which is just fucking brilliant. 

Ray sighs, and heads for Gerard, who's already stalking offstage. When he catches him, in a dark little nook, full of packing cases and foldbacks and mismatched amp cabinets, away from everyone, he can see Gerard's hands are shaking. 

'I ran out of fucking cigarettes,' he mutters. He doesn't even look at Ray, just leans into him like he knows Ray'll be there to steady him. He's trembling all over and licking his lips and somehow Ray knows what's coming even before Gerard says, 'please, I need you to - can you help me out again?'

Ray hugs Gerard to him for a second and then turns him around to lean up against a packing case. This is good, he thinks, looking at Gerard like this. Maybe if Gerard isn't literally spread out under him, maybe if he can't make noise because of where they are, Ray's body won't get all confused about how it thinks it's about to get laid just because someone's whimpering hotly under him. 

He reaches around and unbuckles Gerard's belt, pushes his jeans down to just under the curve of his ass, and looks, and curses himself out for not having lube in his pockets, as if that's a normal thing normal non-Mikey people just carry around all the time. 

But Gerard is still shaking, so Ray sticks his fingers in his mouth and prays. 

It's harder work than before, it's tighter and drier and Ray's worried he's going to hurt Gerard, but Gerard won't let him stop, he bears down and shoves back and Ray can see he's biting his wrist white to stop making any noises. Ray doesn't fucking dare ask _is this okay?_ and risk this bubble of privacy they've got bursting. 

Gerard comes all over the packing cases before Ray gets his third finger in this time, anyway. And he slumps against them, just … utterly defeated in every line of his body, and Ray can't help laying his forehead down against the nape of Gerard's neck in silent solidarity for a second while he pulls Gerard's jeans back up and gets him back in order. 

But then Gerard starts to stir, to turn, and Ray reaches up and ruffles his hair and gets out of range before Gerard can touch him.

They need to keep on schedule, that's all.

***

It's not uncommon for Gerard to not come to an afterparty, and when he does come, it's not rare that he leaves early. He never liked the crowded bus parties anyway, except as an excuse to get even more fucked up than usual. But he usually tells someone if he's leaving, and something rubs Ray the wrong way about the fact that ten minutes after they pitched up at Avenged's bus tonight, Gerard disappeared. That's a pretty abrupt departure for a guy who's working his ass off to stay sober on tour without becoming a total social pariah. 

Ray catches Frank's eye and jerks his head at the door. Frank's been looking around too for the last few minutes, and he knows exactly what Ray means, waves him off. If Gerard resurfaces, Ray knows Frank'll attach himself to him like a limpet, but Ray has a sneaking suspicion that he's left entirely. 

So Ray goes back to their bus. Before he even gets close, he knows Gerard's there. The lights are on, weak and yellow through the little windows in the darkness out in the parking lot. As he crosses the asphalt Ray squints. There's movement inside, he can see a shadowy figure occasionally, so it isn't as if Gerard just went back to get some shut-eye.

Ray pushes the bus door and it isn't even locked, so he hops up and in.

Gerard's got his hair pushed back behind his ears, out of his face, and he never bothered to clean the makeup properly off after their set so he looks grim and like he hasn't slept in a fortnight under all the smudged eyeliner. 

He's pouring a bottle of vodka down the sink. The kitchenette stinks of it. The question is, where did he get it? They had a few people over early on in the tour, that's the last time Ray remembers seeing anything harder than beer on the bus. Ray'd assumed everything anyone brought had got finished off that night. They don't leave alcohol out in the open, that would be fucking stupid. Which means this bottle got stashed. Somewhere Gerard knew about. Which probably means Gerard stashed it. 

But he's pouring it down the sink - and he looks at Ray like a deer in the headlights but he doesn't stop what he's doing. 

'I didn't -' he starts. 'It's not -' 

_what it looks like_ is what he's going to say, but the thing is it _is_ what it looks like, because it looks like Gerard stopping himself from doing something bad, and as the empty bottle clatters into the sink Ray can't help himself, he surges forward and catches Gerard in a hug because Jesus, he's just so fucking proud of him. His face is buried in Gerard's hair, which is objectively gross, but of all the things it stinks of (cigarettes, stale coffee, hair dye, hairspray) it doesn't stink of booze any more. Gerard doesn't sweat 90 percent proof any more. He fights so hard, he's always fighting, and Ray doesn't think he's ever gonna stop being slightly in awe of this part of Gerard. 

In his arms, though, Gerard is shaking, and Ray knows he's got to get him out of that stench, got to distract him, got to calm him down. 

'I didn't,' Gerard is saying into Ray's shoulder, over and over. 'I didn't, I swear, I didn't touch it, I don't even know why I -'

'Shhh,' says Ray, spinning Gerard around and pushing him towards the bunks, snagging a handful of toilet paper from the bathroom as they pass, because he knows what he can do, knows something that oughtta knock Gerard out like a light. He pulls Gerard into his bunk and and works his pants down off his ass and then he's got a half-naked body sprawled under him. 

Gerard has lube in his bunk, because of course he does. Ray would probably judge this way harder if a) he wasn't using it right now and b) he wasn't uncomfortably aware that Mikey keeps the entire contents of a well-stocked sex-shop in his duffle and c) Frank definitely owns something that buzzes when he thinks he's alone on the bus. Whatever. One finger gets Gerard to actually stop muttering about how he didn't, he _didn't_ and start making other noises instead, warm, hungry little noises, and two fingers gets Ray a moan. He kneels up to get better leverage, puts his hand on Gerard's shoulder where he's bleeding warmth through his shirt and puts it to him harder. 

Gerard melts. His knees are flat to the mattress, so wide that Ray can make out the lines of the big tendons running down the inside of Gerard's thighs, where he's white and soft-looking. So little of Gerard ever actually sees the sun, definitely not the bits he's putting on display right now. Ray's weird protective instincts are going off like klaxons at the sight of it, of Gerard trusting him like this.

'Please,' Gerard huffs. His face is turned sideways and he's panting into his pillow. Ray's not sure what he's asking for, he kind of doesn't have a map here. 'Please, Ray.'

'Please what?' Ray whispers, curling lower to hear the soft sounds Gerard's making, in case the answer's in there somewhere. 

Gerard groans, eyes clenched shut, but he does say, 'More?'

So Ray does his best, and two fingers becomes three fingers, and four fingers, and then Gerard's almost completely non-verbal, just moaning, moaning, moaning and Ray thinks he's starting to get a handle on what the noises mean. 

Then Gerard sobs, throws an arm up over his eyes like if he can't see Ray then Ray can't see him, and he says in a tiny, shaking, groaning voice, 'Can you - _Jesus, Ray_ \- blow me, fuck - please? I need - '

Ray looks to where he's kinda avoided looking before, and fuck, Gerard's dick is red and hard and his balls are drawn up tight, and that looks - he's ready to go, he really is, but he seems like tonight he just can't get there by himself, or from what Ray's doing alone. It makes sense - he's stressed, it's hard to get off when you're anxious. Ray would like to help, he really would.

The thing is, though, that Ray doesn't actually know how to give a blowjob. It's all very well saying he's had people give them to him, so he ought to know what's good, but that's like saying if you listen to Electric Ladyland often enough you should be able to play guitar like Hendrix. 

Gerard has most of Ray's hand in him and how does that not fucking hurt? Ray has big hands. But Gerard's hard and he's fucking writhing all over the bed and Ray really, really wants to get him off. Everything in him that loves Gerard like a brother and wants him to be okay is all tangled up with the part of him that needs to do things _right_ and also the confused part of him that's hanging hot and heavy and fucking inappropriately in his pants right now listening to the noises Gerard's making, and … and fuck it. 

It's only a dick. Right? 

Ray ducks his head, thinks a quick prayer up to whoever the fuck watches over this kind of situation, and kinda presses his mouth against the head of Gerard's cock, kisses it in a sloppy confused way, and figures it's not that bad, so he opens up and …

Okay basically he chokes, but then again so does Gerard and so Ray slides back and takes a breath and tries again. It stretches his mouth wider than he'd expected, it's sore on the hinge of his jaw, and Gerard's hands flutter down and fist in the sheets either side of his hips.

'Oh, fuck, Ray, _Ray_ , shit, shitshitshit -' Gerard's vocal ability has come back and he's heading for fucking falsetto if Ray's any judge. He keeps working his fingers and ducking his head and some weird detached part of his brain is for some reason trying to work out if he likes it or not. 

It's a mindfuck, having another dude's junk in your mouth. 

'- Ray, I'm gonna, shit, I'm so close, please, please -' and Ray knows for damn sure he isn't ready to have Gerard fucking blow a load in his mouth so he pulls off and replaces his mouth with his free hand and the wad of toilet paper, and it takes all of about like, a second and a half for Gerard to lose it after that. 

Ray pulls free to get rid of the evidence before Gerard stops twitching, which feels like a dick move but he doesn't want a repeat of the last time they were on a bed together. Gerard muzzily still tries to reach for him but Ray eels out of his way and gets up. 

He pats Gerard awkwardly on the head, half almost trying to fix his disastrous hair, and then pulls the blanket out from where it's wadded up against the back of the bunk and covers him up, closes the bunk curtain. 

He flushes the toilet paper, and then he pauses, and realises the bus still stinks, so he goes to the kitchenette and opens the tiny little window, and runs the faucet until the reek of vodka's gone. When he goes back to the bunks to get some sleep, because he's damned if he's gonna leave Gerard alone and head back to the party, there's snoring coming from Gerard's little nest. 

Fortunately it's dark and no-one else is here, so Ray doesn't have to hide his dumbass smile. 

***

The existential crisis, which was probably inevitable, doesn't actually hit until mid-morning the next day.

They're getting ready to soundcheck yet another stage in yet another field in yet another town when Ray suddenly, like, blinks and remembers apropos of shit all that he had a dick in his mouth last night, and doesn't know what to do with that information, not even a tiny bit.

Thank God for guitar straps, seriously, or he'd have a broken foot and probably a ruined Les Paul paintjob he can't afford to get fixed. 

The stage manager is beckoning them on. Frank gives Ray a little push. Bob is already perched on his stool, leaning across his snare to adjust the heights of the mics on his kit. 

'Check, check, check,' Gerard intones, snapping his fingers in front of the Shure like Ray taught him years ago after he kinda died a little inside watching Gerard tap his fingers too hard on one too many microphones. 'La la la -' and he's going into his vocal exercises like he wasn't doing them backstage ten minutes ago, like he isn't going to do them again before they actually play this afternoon. 

He's not dressed up - his hair's a mess, he's drowning in a hoodie that might have originally been Bob's, and his jeans are barely holding it together, but it doesn't matter - Gerard croons into the microphone, already swallowed up in his stage persona, lost in his own little a cappella world. Frank fiddles with his tone pots and plays F over and over trying to get the exact level of grunt he wants out of his Epiphone, and Mikey goes up and down the scale like he always does, trying to loosen his fingers up. Ray knows his hands are doing something too, but he isn't listening to what he's playing, he's watching the way Gerard holds onto the mic stand like he loves it, and thinking _I blew Gerard last night_. 

Suddenly Mikey's clicking his fingers in Ray's face. 'Dude. Hey. Space-case. C'mon. Helena?'

Gerard looks over and winks, smiles, hips rocking as he taps his feet, and …

And he's a hundred miles away from the Gerard who was pouring vodka down the sink last night, a million miles away from the Gerard who threw up for what felt like eight straight hours before he finally admitted there was something wrong with him, and. 

… and y'know what? Ray would do it again. He fucking would. For Gerard, to help him out, just to see him smile - Ray wouldn't even hesitate. And he doesn't know how the fuck to feel about that. He doesn't know what it means, what it says … he doesn't know if it means he _wants_ to do it again or just - 

He doesn't know. 

He bends over his guitar and realises that whatever his fingers have been doing, it's pretty fucking good. He keeps noodling on it in between songs, moves it up, moves it down, plays it in barres, power chords, tries to pick a little arpeggio out of it but can't quite get the sound he wants, not when he keeps getting interrupted by, y'know, actual songs they've already written that he needs to actually play to prepare for their paying audience. 

It earworms him pretty good, though, and afterwards Gerard comes over and bumps his shoulder. 'You've got something there,' he says. 'I like it.'

Ray blushes hot to the roots of his hair and doesn't know why. 

***

There's only so much catering food you can eat. Or, rather, there's only so much catering food _Frank_ can eat, and too long existing on just fries and things even Ray would agree are piss-poor excuses for salad starts to take a toll on him. They try and keep shit on the bus for him but, well, there's five people on that bus and they're all erratically prone to the munchies and fake bacon is fucking delicious, okay? So they inevitably run out of shit Frank can eat, Frank inevitably ends up running on empty but pretending he's fine, and if you don't catch him fast enough he'll overdo it onstage and it's a downward spiral from there. 

Frank is, depending who you talk to, a delicately balanced ecosystem of medical problems, a precision-engineered punk rock machine that you just gotta keep fuelled up and oiled, or a walking disaster area that needs to be put on a leash. 

Or d) all of the above. But whatever, okay, it boils down to sometimes they need to escape the convoy and become suburban hunter-gatherers. 

The problem with this is that they're starting to become recognisable. Ray and Bob can mostly fly under the radar without any trouble if it's just them - big plain-looking dudes in band shirts aren't that remarkable or noteworthy. Gerard, Frank and Mikey, though, have to bundle themselves up in hoodies and sunglasses like they're plotting a bank heist if they want to leave the cordon of insanity that separates the tour from the outside world without getting shrieked at and asked to sign at least one object and/or body part. Even then, they're not always that successful.

By the time they find a diner that has staff too old to have heard of the band but that will feed Frank without giving him the Oh You're One of Those look, they've collectively been press-ganged into signing two comic books, three t-shirts, an algebra textbook (...okay then) and a Fall Out Boy CD, which makes Bob snicker. Ray suspects strongly that the lady who asked them for the last one thinks she's going to make her teenager's day. Gerard has also signed a collarbone. The owner of the collarbone wanted it to be basically her boob, judging by the way she yanked the neckline of her top down, but Gerard kept his eyes and Sharpie at gentlemanly levels. 

'You better not be thinking of getting this tattooed,' he tells her, in the proto-Dad Voice he's been developing since he realised kids were, like, actually listening to him, and had a crisis of conscience about being a Role Model.

She tells him of course not, and if Ray's any judge she's a couple of years off being able to do so, or at least, off being able to do so anywhere you could trust to check IDs and meet legal hygiene standards, but Gerard still sighs after she's gone. 

Frank shoulder-bumps him. 'Don't worry about it,' he says. 'Who hasn't got at least one shitty band tattoo?'

'Me?' says Gerard. 

'Yeah, but you're lame,' Frank retorts, but he's grinning and steering Gerard into the diner and by the time they've found a booth at the back, Gerard's smiling again. 

It's nice being out in, like, the real world. Ray gets to eat scrambled eggs that probably actually came from a chicken and not from a bag of powder, and he gets to listen to Frank defend Black Flag's music against Gerard, who actually seems to be criticising their logo and specifically the rendition of it that's on Frank's bicep around mouthfuls of his pancakes. Mikey gets up to use the bathroom and they all shuffle round and stretch out only to have to squeeze back in again when he comes back. Ray ends up with Bob's elbow in his side and Gerard's thigh jammed up against him, and relaxes into it, instincts from years of bundling together into too-small vans full of gear and merch apparently still on autopilot. 

Gerard lays his head on Ray's shoulder and is saying something to Frank about Barnett Newman and rectangles, just as the waitress comes over to check they're good and whether they want anything else. 

'Can I get a milkshake, please?' Gerard asks, interrupting himself. 'Chocolate?'

She eyes him, and then eyes Ray, with a little smile and says, 'Two straws, honey?'

'Nah, one's fine,' says Gerard breezily, and he's back to trying to art school talk Frank into agreeing with him without so much as a blink. But Ray wriggles back as much as he can, so Gerard is forced to sit up straight and take his own weight, and when Gerard's milkshake arrives, Ray makes sure he's pulled his arm down off the back of the seat, even though it makes the whole side of the booth a little tighter. 

Gerard looks around when he does that, and makes a quizzical little face, and offers him the milkshake, which completely misses the point.

***

All Ray's doing is innocently walking back from catering when a hand snakes out from behind a rank of porta-potties and snags him by the front of his shirt.

The hand belongs to Gerard, who's smoking surreptitiously like he thinks a gym teacher is gonna come along and give him detention for doing it. 

'Hey,' says Ray, shoving his hands in his pockets and going for casual and probably missing by a mile. 'Y'know, you can smoke at the bus, dude. You don't have to hide -'

Gerard drops the cigarette and grinds it out, and looks around but they're in the tiny, dank, dirt-smelling space between the plastic backs of the johns and a chainlink fence that backs onto some kind of park - there's nothing and no-one to see them back here but trees and like, squirrels or some shit. 'Can't do this back at the bus,' he says, and pulls Ray in by his collar. 

Ray manages to duck and twist out of it before Gerard can actually like, kiss him or something. 

'Dude, seriously,' says Gerard, pouting. 'Why can't I -'

'We're on in like, twenty minutes,' Ray points out, feeling weird and not knowing quite why. Gerard shouldn't be kissing Ray, he should be kissing people who are actually into dudes, the way Gerard is, people who would appreciate it properly. It's just Ray wouldn't really like it, he's pretty sure - no offence to Gerard, who he's sure is a good kisser if you're into kissing men - so it would be a waste of time all around. 

He should walk away. Better, he should walk away and bring Gerard with him, because they really do only have twenty minutes and there's makeup and ties and Mikey's inevitable hair emergency of the day to deal with. 

But. 

He actually kinda ... He wants to try something. And he might not get another moment when they're so actually, truly alone. Not on tour. And Gerard is right here and they do actually have some privacy so ...

'It's okay,' he says as reassuringly as he can when his stomach is tying itself into fluttery knots. 'I can -' He sinks to his knees before he can think better of it. It's like a high dive, you just gotta go for it, otherwise you'll freak out.

'Holy fuck, Ray,' Gerard whispers. 'That's not what I was - oh, holy - Jesus _fuck_.'

It tastes of … it tastes of unwashed dude, there's not a nicer way to put it, and it feels fucking weird, but there's just … there's _something_ about it, about doing it, about the way Gerard moves and moans and subsides into tiny hitching motions and shuddering breaths and goes all soft and careful. Ray widens his mouth and strokes Gerard's belly and wills him along until he's pawing at Ray's face. Not holding, not … pushing, but touching so fucking softly it's making Ray blush, it's the way you'd treat a girl who'd never done it before, all careful and shit. Ray's not a fucking virgin but Gerard's treating him so sweet.

'Ray, please, shit, please, _please_ , let me, please let me -'

Ray doesn't know what makes him do it, why he doesn't pull away this time, but he tugs at Gerard's hips and forces his jaw wide, takes Gerard in as deep as he can, and lets it happen. 

Afterwards Gerard thumbs at Ray's lower lip, where he can feel there's a slick, cooling droplet, and his eyes are blown so black he really does look like a fucking vampire. 'Jesus,' he says reverently. He strokes Ray's hair off his face softly. Something twists in Ray's gut.

'C'mon,' says Ray, swiping at his mouth distractedly and pushing at Gerard as he gets up off his knees. 'Eyeliner doesn't put itself on.'

Gerard sighs, and then visibly puts on his game face. 'You're damn right it doesn't.'

***

Frank puts his face in Gerard's crotch on stage that afternoon and Ray can't look.

Gerard tries to lean against Ray's back and Ray finds himself bowing over forward instead like he totally needs to concentrate on fretting E-shape chords, like he has to watch his own fingers, and eventually Gerard gives up and goes somewhere else, Ray doesn't see where, just knows he has stage left to himself again. 

He lets his hair fall over his face, and licks his lips, chasing a taste that faded hours ago, and very quietly, without missing a beat, starts to freak the fuck out. 

***

'You are gonna have to leave the back of the bus eventually, dude,' says Frank, who's the last out the door, fringe swooped sideways and held there by a tanker-worth of hair gel, trailing the Ways, all three of them made up and dressed up and ready to go. 'Stump's gonna be fucking disappointed you're not coming tonight.'

'Tell him I said hi,' says Ray distractedly, staring at ProTools as if that's what he's gonna be doing tonight and not the browser window he has _behind_ the ProTools.

Frank sighs, and leaves, muttering 'fucking obsessive nerd,' fondly. 'Is that the thing from soundcheck the other day? Let me know when you want me to listen to it,' is his parting shot. 

Ray smiles down at his keyboard, because Frank may be an anarchic little shit but Ray wouldn't trade him and his ear and his advice for the world. Then the bus door shuts, and Ray sobers, remembering he actually has a purpose for this evening, and he's not gonna get that many decent opportunities to go through with this. He takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and minimises ProTools. Picks up his laptop and goes to lay down in his bunk, because he has _research_ to do. 

See, what worries Ray is technique. 

That's kind of a good summary of Ray in general, really, but like …

This thing with Gerard _keeps happening_ , and Ray's floundering around without a map here. That's what's getting to him. He's never been good at jumping into things blindly, and it's not in his nature to half-ass things, either. So maybe … if he can get a handle on what he's supposed to be doing, how this all is supposed to work, the _technique_ , then he can help Gerard out, keep him from needing to find some other kind of fix, and get his own head straight over it, and stop fucking freaking out over the whole situation. 

So …

… well, not to put too fine a fucking point on it, but he's gonna download some porn. 

He knows from past experience (look, there's a lot of pressure wrapped up in losing your virginity and Ray wanted to not be fucking terrible his first time, okay?) that anatomy textbooks don't tell you anything useful in this sort of situation and while he knows porn is not exactly documentary level accuracy it does at least give you some ballpark idea of what things go where?

It takes him a while to _find_ any relevant porn, because apparently dude-on-dude porn likes to pretend that the logistics of buttfucking just don't exist, but after a while and ignoring the Greek chorus of his band members in his head jeering at him about how tragically vanilla he is, he finds something that looks applicable. 

He makes it about twenty seconds before he slams his laptop shut and shoves himself backwards on his mattress away from it. 

He takes about another minute to berate himself into manning the fuck up, but this time he mutes the video, because jeez. Whatever the attraction of dude-porn is, it is not the dirty talk. Not that this is something Ray's doing because he wants to get off, but like … look, if this was about sex, for Ray, the last fucking thing he'd want to call Gerard - to call _anyone_ \- is a 'dirty fucking whore'. 

So he watches one dude blow another completely on mute, and does his best to, like, not look at the dick, just at the mouth and the tongue, trying to figure out what the tricks are. There will be tricks, there are tricks to everything. Ray was just going on instinct when he tried this before. Having actual like, pointers would make the whole thing a lot less terrifying.

(Ray really doesn't like being bad at shit, okay?)

The guy getting blown is pretty pushy about what he's doing with his hands, pulling his partner off and pushing his mouth open again and thrusting in. Gerard didn't do that. And Ray's glad, because he doesn't know how he would have reacted. It doesn't look like something he'd enjoy, being controlled like that. Although ... Ray's maybe given a girl or two some guidance about depth and pace and … he just kind of likes playing with their hair, when they're going down on him, and it's so easy to -

To be a controlling, pushy asshole.

Fuck. Ray is never going to ask a girl to blow him ever again and if he's lucky enough to have one volunteer he's keeping his hands strictly to him-fucking-self. He watches, frozen, as the guy on the receiving end yanks his dick out, dripping, and pulls his partner up into his lap, spreads him out and pushes him down like he's going to spank him. 

He's talking again, and Ray really doesn't want to know what he's saying, but there's lube and he only starts with one finger and the other guy's eyes shiver shut in a way that doesn't seem like he hates what's going on, so Ray keeps watching.

He leaves it muted though, even when the top dude's lips stop moving, because it's easier to concentrate on what's going on that way. He should probably be making notes, or something, but he's too busy keeping one hand on the edge of the screen just in case someone comes back early from whatever the fuck it is Fall Out Boy are ringleading tonight and he needs to slam it shut.

The guy on the bottom's eyes are shut now and he's panting and biting his lip the way Gerard was doing to try and be quiet. Ray shifts his other hand into his lap and rearranges himself, because having the zipper of your jeans dig into you is no fucking joke, but he pulls it back out again straight away. This isn't about jacking off. Just because he's having a perfectly normal biological reaction to watching porn doesn't mean he has to get off on it. He's trying to do research here. 

He risks turning the sound back on, making sure his headphones are plugged in first, because the dude doing the fingering still hasn't started talking again but the one being fingered is making this _face_ and Ray can't tell without sound if it's a good face or a bad face, and if it's a bad face then he wants to make sure he doesn't do whatever's being done in the video right now. 

It turns out it's a good face. They're unmistakably good noises. Really good noises, like, the kind of little high grunts and moans you get when someone's super into what you're making them feel, enough to stop paying attention to what's coming out of their mouths. The blood in Ray's body is having a hard time deciding if it wants to rush to his face or his dick, but he keeps watching because the top guy is doing this twisty thing with his wrist that's clearly working like a fucking charm for his partner and Ray needs to see exactly how he's doing it. 

He really should be taking fucking notes. 

'Oh, oh god, there, right there,' says the guy getting fingered suddenly, and Ray startles, it's been just tiny quiet moans for so long he'd almost forgotten words could happen. These ones don't sound like fake, scripted dialogue, either. 

'Is that it?' asks the top, and fuck, he's breathless too, he changes his angle minutely and starts going harder. 'Am I hitting it? Is it good?'

'So fucking good,' and oh, right, okay, Ray knows what that's about. The prostate, right? Gerard's been so focused on feeling _full_ \- that's the thing he babbles about when he's running his mouth off - Ray hasn't really thought about anything else. Fuck, though, he is now. Seeing the reaction to it on the video, wondering if he could make Gerard lose his mind like that. That would probably help with the whole needing to get out of his head thing, right? 

Eventually though, the guy in the video pulls his fingers out and reaches for a condom, and that's when Ray turns it off. He doesn't need to see that. It's not relevant. 

He buries the file in the folders of disorganised crap he keeps on the harddrive, unplugs his headphones, busies himself sorting all his stuff out and putting it away and then goes and sits down with his acoustic for a while to wait for the others to get back. He feels good. Better about the whole thing, anyway, like, he's got a couple of things to try out and just, the whole technique issue is a lot less of a worry now, because basically it looks like he had the right idea to start with. 

He wishes his stupid boner would go away, but whatever. That's biology for you.

Ray looks down at himself, though, and sighs. He hasn't jerked off since the last disastrous attempt, what with the whole bus thing, and since he's hard already and no-one's here ... what the hell. The bus is as safe and Gerard-free as it's ever gonna be. He puts the guitar down and climbs back into his bunk, rucks his jeans down his thighs and wraps his hand around himself, kicking it into overdrive from the start because he doesn't know how much time he has before he's got company. Hard and fast is how he kinda likes it anyway, and he rolls over onto his belly and fucks down into his hand, thinking hazily about heat and wet, sloppy fucking, someone tight around his cock, their arms around his neck, fingernails raggedly biting into his shoulders, sharp where they're bitten off, fuck yeah, and in his head they're moaning his name so loud he can almost hear it. They call it echoic memory, the thing where you remember sound and voices. It's always been Ray's strong point. 

_Fuck, Ray,_ says the memory of Gerard, all ruined in Ray's head, and Ray yanks his hand off himself so fast his head spins. His hips jerk and shove into the mattress desperately a few times before he can get himself under control, but he stops. 

He stops, that's the important thing. 

***

Touring is hard on the liver. More than that, it's hard on the soul. Gross, mean, small-minded things happen, and everyone gets blindsided by it sooner or later. One of the things that makes Ray proud about his band is that they never take tour bullshit lying down.

It's the asscrack small hours of the morning when he wakes up in his bunk and realises the noises that woke him up are someone trying to get into the bus. He hops down, has to steady himself against a headrush, and then realises his pants are still undone. By the time he's figured out the complicated technology known as a 'zipper', the door's open. 

It turns out Gerard is the first person back from the party, but he only wins that title because he comes through the bus door butt-first, hauling Frank, who seems to be having trouble staying upright. Ray goes to help. It shouldn't be so hard to move someone so incredibly fucking tiny, but Frank's solid with muscle, and drunk people weigh tonnes more than they should anyway. 

Frank's also angry.

'I fucking _hate people_ ,' he says fiercely into Ray's hair as they both trip over Gerard's feet. There just isn't enough space for three of them to stand abreast, let alone try and actually walk. Plus, Frank's legs don't work when he's off his face, and Gerard's never been the most coordinated of people. 

'You made them stop though,' Gerard tells him earnestly, wriggling his arm under Frank's shoulder to hold him up better. They make it to the kitchenette, which means more shit to lean on but also more things for Frank to grab at on the way to the bunks. 'You did good, Frankie.'

After they manage to pour Frank into his bunk and wrestle his boots off (which ends in bruises for everyone, somehow including Frank), Ray follows Gerard back out to the kitchenette. It's way past midnight, but he still starts fumbling for the coffee and the filters. 

'What was that all about?' Ray asks softly as Gerard fills the coffee machine up. 

Gerard sighs, head down and hair straggling over his face. 'Another shitty little band of shitty little assholes who think it's okay to take advantage of kids who just want to listen to music,' he says, and his hands are shaking. 

Ray hits start on the coffee machine when Gerard can't seem to do it, and his other hand drifts up to pet at Gerard's neck. 'You gonna want another long interlude in the set tomorrow?' he asks. 'If we haven't played I'm Not Okay yet, they won't pull us no matter what you say.'

'Is there any point?' Gerard asks. 'The ones who pull this kind of shit don't listen anyway.'

'Maybe not,' says Ray, listening to the coffee machine gurgle and feeling Gerard's body stiff and unhappy against his but leaning against him like he needs the support. 'But the ones who are listening to you need to hear that some shit isn't okay, and they don't have to put up with it.'

Gerard sighs, and the coffee machine finishes its mystical processes. 

'They look up to you,' Ray says into the silence. It's the truth, anyone who's been to a My Chem show can see it.

'I want a fucking drink,' says Gerard, quietly and painfully. When he finally looks at Ray, something stutters in Ray's chest, shakes loose, because Gerard looks bruised and too pretty in the low light, and it's a look he's seen a million times but this isn't shaky drunk Gerard saying c'mon Ray, let's just have one more for the road. This is something harder.

This isn't _please let me_ , it's _please stop me_.

Ray pours Gerard's coffee and pushes the mug into his nerveless hand, and then pushes Gerard in the direction of his bunk. It isn't as if it's the damn coffee that stops Gerard sleeping, let's face it. 

Once he hears the rattle of the shitty plastic curtain rail slide, he ferrets every bottle of beer and anything else he can find out of every hiding place he knows about, and stashes them all in the back of his practice amp, pulling all the spare leads and the pedals he's not using right now out to make space, and shoving the thing up against the bus wall so the hideyhole isn't visible. They don't keep much alcohol around anyway, and no hard stuff, but this is just safer. Gerard doesn't touch Ray's gear. He won't find it by accident there. 

Ray makes a mental note to tell Frank, Bob and Mikey in the morning where the stash has gone, and then he goes to take a piss. He should go to bed too. Bob and Mikey are usually pretty good about being quiet when they get in, but they've got a full day of driving tomorrow.

From the echo-ey metal inside of the can, though, he can hear Frank's drunk snoring, and a tiny undertone that's pretty much a reluctant, I'm-not-crying sniffle, and his heart breaks a little bit. So instead of getting back into his own bunk, he squeezes as quietly as possible in with Gerard and murmurs, 'hey,' into what he hopes is Gerard's ear. 

Gerard sniffs. 'Hey,' he says back hoarsely, and immediately curls into Ray. Ray only meant to, like, spoon Gerard into sleeping by force, but there's no mistaking what Gerard wants when he wriggles back against Ray's body like that, and right now Ray would give him anything he asked for if it would make him feel better. 

So Ray tucks his fingers into the waistband of Gerard's PJ bottoms. 'You need a hand?' he asks softly, and he doesn't fucking care about the double-entendre anymore, not when Gerard's this close to actual tears.

He feels Gerard nod, the top of his skull bobbing under Ray's chin because he's curled himself up so tight he's basically a foetal ball. Ray kinda kisses his hair on autopilot and then feels dumb. Gerard isn't Ray's girlfriend or something, jeez. He eases his hands further into Gerard's pants and pushes them down over his thighs and ass. 'C'mere,' he murmurs, and pulls until Gerard's on his back and he can get the soft, worn-out PJs off him and push his knees up. 

The lube is the same place it was last time, shoved in the back corner of the bunk where the pillow hides it from view. Ray gropes for it over Gerard's head, gets it open one handed so he can keep rubbing Gerard's hip as soothingly as he knows how while he rubs his fingers together to spread the slick.

Gerard's fidgeting and squirming like he doesn't know how to stay still, so Ray sits up against the back of the bunk and pulls Gerard by the thighs so that he can brace himself against the wall and have Gerard's ass basically in his lap, within easy reach. He smooths his pointer finger, all sloppy-slick, around Gerard's hole, to get things going, and then starts to work it in.

He likes to see Gerard's face when he's doing this, to check his reactions and make sure he's not hurting him, but it's dark in here and so he has to listen and feel instead. Every little tiny push in, Gerard makes this little puppyish grunt, and his breathing is wet and harsh, and his knees have fallen wide and open across Ray's thighs. He's so fucking responsive, maybe Ray doesn't need to see, not really. Everything Gerard is doing just tells him he made the right choice to climb in here.

Ray's traitor dick has started to get hard in his own pants. He surreptitiously tries to shuffle himself so that no part of Gerard is in contact with his inconvenient hard-on. It's not something he wants Gerard to feel obligated to deal with. He doesn't want it dealt with. It pisses him off, that he still doesn't seem to be able to un-hardwire the bit of his brain that hears someone else be turned on and decides to try and replicate the experience. 

He resolutely ignores his dick and concentrates on his hands, and on Gerard's reaction to his touch. It's like playing harmonics, hitting the string just enough to get that tiny perfect sound to sing out without hitting it so hard that you get the actual note you're fretting - you gotta be confident but you gotta be delicate too, and the craftsman in Ray fucking loves shit like this. 

When he's got his first two fingers in, Ray starts to gently feel around, instead of just straight up going to get the third one in. He's not sure what he's feeling for, but he strokes around until he finds something that makes Gerard go rigid and then start to full-on pant and push back against Ray's hand. Those puppy- _unf_ s turn into full-on groans, and Ray starts to worry seriously that he's making too much noise, that he'll wake Frank. 

So he keeps carefully pressing in, rubbing softly, at the angle that's working so good, and leans forward to put his other hand across Gerard's mouth. 

Gerard's breathing hitches and he fucking whimpers into the palm of Ray's hand, which does weird unsettling things to Ray's already way too interested dick, but is at least quiet. He's shoving himself onto Ray's hand and Ray knows he wants more. 

He tries to keep on touching what he's pretty sure is Gerard's prostate even though it's tight with three fingers inside, and Gerard is frantic now, hips rocking violently like he wants to get pounded, and Ray worries, y'know? He worries about Gerard, knows that the sex he was having before wasn't very safe, knows that Gerard has issues with looking out for his own well-being, so even though Gerard is working himself up and down on Ray's fingers punishingly hard, Ray tightens his shoulder and makes sure he's fucking him as hard as he can too. Because if he can give Gerard what he needs like this, controlled and clean and safe, then he won't need to go out and risk himself with a stranger. 

Gerard bites Ray's palm as he comes, and the smell of it is sharp and obvious in the bunk. Ray didn't think to grab tissues or toilet paper or anything this time, fuck. He starts to try and wriggle out from under Gerard's dead-octopus sprawl to go back to the bathroom for something to clean the mess up with, but Gerard somehow tangles him up and pins him down. 

Ray at least manages to catch his wrist before he can get his hand on Ray's erection. 'It's okay,' he says softly. 'I don't need -'

'C'mon Ray, please?' Gerard breathes, and Ray's bad at saying no anyway but the Way wheedle is just dirty pool. He forces Gerard back onto the pillow end of the bunk. 

'Don't worry about me,' he says, holding Gerard's hands down. 'I'm not - this isn't about that, not for me.' He gets the distinct sense that Gerard is staring at him in the the dark. 'I'm just gonna go get some -' he says, and scrambles out of the bunk. 

When he gets back, with a double handful of toilet paper, Gerard takes it from him, but catches his hand before he can pull away. 'We're not doing anything wrong, y'know,' he says in a low voice. 

Ray wraps his arm around Gerard's shoulder in a quick bro-hug. 'I know,' he says. 

He climbs up to his bunk before Gerard can turn this into a full-on late-night heart-to-heart, and hopes to God Frank is still asleep. 

***

The thing about Gerard and Frank's onstage semi-hookups is they probably do discourage assholes from coming to their shows and buying their albums but they don't really do much to stop said assholes from taking a swing if the tour stops in their town and half the bands decide to sneak off to the local watering hole. 

Ray's on the Fall Out Boy bus trying to have a semi-adult conversation with Patrick Stump about music as if they're professionals when both of their phones simultaneously go fucking nuts. Ray grabs for his before it can vibrate its way off the Formica tabletop and realises he's got about six texts from Bob that he's missed but he can't stop to check them now because Brian is calling him. 

'What the fuck is going on?' is Brian's opening salvo, to which Ray's only answer is a _huh?_ noise.

At the same time, Patrick says, 'You're fucking shitting me, oh my god,' into his own phone and grabs Ray by the elbow. 'Your boys are brawling with the local wildlife,' he says. 'Pete says Mikey _punched someone,_ holy shit, c'mon we gotta -'

'I don't know what's going on, Brian, okay, but I'm about to go find out, will you calm down?' Ray says, shrugging into his jacket and trying not to lose his phone from his shoulder in the process. 'They just went out for a drink, okay, that's all - no I don't know where -' but Patrick's forging off ahead like he does know, so Ray follows him. 

'I take one night off,' Brian says, and Ray can hear the frustrated eyeroll. 'One goddamn night -'

'We can handle it,' says Ray, which is probably a lie. They're pasty nerds who play guitar and have fuck-all useful life experience. That's why they need Brian, okay? MCR could not collectively organise themselves out of a wet paper bag and Ray is self-aware enough to know that, and to know that they couldn't collectively fight their way out of a wet paper bag either. Frank's scrappy and Bob's scary and Ray's been known to at least pretend like he was willing to throw a punch if he thought it would make someone back down, but …

He hangs up on Brian and starts to jog after Patrick. About ten steps later they both break into a dead run. Ray wonders if Patrick is having the same thoughts he is. 

They round a corner into an weakly orange-lit street scene that looks like some kind of Renaissance painting, the kind where you can't tell if they've just had an orgy or a war. There's someone lying in a gutter, but it's not someone Ray knows and they don't look hurt, so he keeps on looking til his eyes light on Mikey, under the failing streetlight. Gerard's holding one of Mikey's hands in both of his and Frank's in his perch on Bob's shoulders, gesticulating wildly with a lit cigarette that's the brightest thing in the street. It leaves light trails in Ray's vision like a sparkler. 

Something small and ballistic hits Patrick roughly in the solar plexus, and turns out to be Pete Wentz. 

'What the fuck happened?' Patrick asks, wheezily. 

'Mikes broke his hand on some dude's face,' says Frank, because he and Bob have materialised at Ray's side. Frank sounds like, two thirds proud and one third worried.

There are about seventeen questions in Ray's head right now starting with 'Mikey? Our Mikey? Mikey _Way?_ ' and ending with 'Is he still going to be able to play tomorrow night if he's got a busted hand?' but the one that actually comes out first is 'Why?'

Frank flicks his cigarette butt to the ground and Bob grinds it out, then abruptly lets go of Frank and lets him slither to the ground. 'Because he was talking shit about Gerard,' says Bob. He huffs his sardonic little laugh. 'Don't think he knew who Mikey was, just wanted to bitch about The Gays ruining rock and roll.'

'Recognised me, though,' says Frank, and now he looks a bit smug, and Ray realises his lip is fattening up like someone got in a punch of their own. Ray isn't … that surprised, actually. After whatever the fuck happened with that local act the other night, which Ray still hasn't got to the bottom of, Frank's been super goddamn aggressive. Also his homemade _homophobia is gay_ t-shirt could really use a freaking wash but he won't stop wearing it anywhere he thinks there's gonna be a camera.

'Yeah he was totally impressed with that peck on the cheek you gave Gerard on MTV,' Bob says, rolling his eyes. 

'Fucking _good_ ,' snarls Gerard, coming up with Mikey in tow. 'I'm gonna fucking blow Frank on stage next set. In a dress.'

'Am I in the dress or are you in the dress?' Frank asks, with interest. Ray was wondering the same thing but he didn't wanna ask in case he got volunteered to wear a dress as well. Although maybe if everyone was, it could be cool. He wasn't sure about the whole ties and bulletproof vests thing either but it worked. Gerard has an eye for costuming. As long as he leaves Ray's hair alone. 

'We're both gonna be in dresses and I'm going to make every dude in the audience take their fucking shirts off,' Gerard growls.

'Not if I kill you all and leave your bodies for the wolves, you won't,' says Brian, appearing like an avenging angel over Ray's shoulder. All of a sudden there's a noticeable lack of members of Fall Out Boy in the immediate vicinity. Ray doesn't blame them. No-one wants to be on the wrong end of an irate manager, even if it's not their manager. 

On the other hand, Brian gets shit done. Within half an hour they're back on their own bus, Frank and Mikey have ice on their war wounds, Bob's dealing with what sounds like seven thousand texts a minute, probably from the collective tour tech crew, and Brian has disappeared again muttering something about PR. 

'It's not even that bad,' says Mikey, looking down at his knuckles and flexing his hand thoughtfully. 'I thought it was supposed to hurt?'

'He had a big stupid meaty jock face,' says Frank, whose lip is pretty fat but then again getting punched in the lip ring will do that to you. 'Maybe his square, manly jawline cushioned your emo knuckles.'

'Fuck you,' says Mikey, and it devolves into yet another discussion of whether or not they're actually "emo" and who gets to, like, put labels on their art - and Ray's already zoning out because he's heard it all before and seriously he's bored of it, when Gerard slinks off the bus. Without even a second thought, Ray follows him.

Gerard stops by the back wheel and lights a cigarette. The lit end of it jitters around like his hands are shaking as he takes the first drag. 

'Hey,' says Ray softly. 'You okay?'

'Sure,' says Gerard. He leans against the bus. 'My brother just got fucking beat up in a redneck bar because of me. I'm doing great, Ray.'

'Your brother punched an idiot who can't deal with the fact that the world isn't the way he wants it to be, and it wasn't even Mikey the idiot punched back, it was Frank,' Ray corrects. He leans next to Gerard, bumps his shoulder. 'Mikey's gonna be getting laid off the back of that story for the rest of the tour, dude, and he didn't even break a nail.'

'Oh yeah,' says Gerard, waving his cigarette. 'It's fucking hilarious. My freaking … _unnatural tendencies_ or whatever are just -'

'Hey shut up, you're not unnatural,' Ray interrupts. 'You're awesome. You're out there being a fucking - a role model, or whatever, Gerard, okay, there are kids out there watching you do your thing on stage and … and maybe figuring out some shit, God, I don't know.'

Ray's fucking terrible at peptalks, which is why he's not the frontman. He's good at hugs, though. They're like, his major contribution to the morale of the band, so he slides his arm around Gerard's shoulder and reels him in for one. 

Gerard buries his face in Ray's shoulder. It doesn't last more than a second though before he stiffens up and pulls himself free. Ray wishes he could see properly, but it's dark enough out here that the expression on Gerard's face is cryptic, mostly in shadow, and his fucking cigarette is leaving bright afterimages in Ray's vision. 

'Thanks,' Gerard says, and there's inches of space between them now that are making Ray itch, they're too deliberate, too far for Gerard, who ranges from 'tactile' to 'downright invading your personal space' and was pretty much crawling all over Ray within about three weeks of them starting to hang out together. 'I mean, good talk, coach,' he says, and Ray suddenly gets it. 

Gerard's planning to sneak off. 

'You okay?' Ray asks him again, closing the gap again. Gerard's basically at the bus's tail lights now. He drops his cigarette and stomps on it, folds his arms.

'You're not my mom,' he says. 'You're not Brian, and you're not my therapist. And you won't -' He huffs frustratedly. 'I just need some fucking space, okay, Ray?'

Except Ray just has this hunch that _space_ isn't what Gerard wants right now, and he knows Gerard well enough to know what he sounds like when he's lying. If he goes out and gets himself into his own kind of fucking trouble tonight, Ray will never forgive himself. 

'I'm your friend,' says Ray softly, and reaches out. 'I want to help you. Please?'

Gerard lets himself be pulled back in, and Ray holds him til he starts to tremble, starts to push against Ray's thigh and mouth at Ray's neck like he wants to kiss him, and Ray gently turns him around and leans him against the side of the bus and gets his jeans down. Gerard makes a protesting noise, when Ray makes him take his hands and put them on the cold metal rather than on Ray's body, but he doesn't fight it. Just widens his stance and sighs into it.

'I wish -' he whimpers when Ray's starting to crook his fingers the way he's getting the hang of now, but Ray shushes him, strokes the back of his neck with his free hand. And for a long, weird, still moment, it's so good. Gerard is starting to calm down, and the night is dark and warm, and Ray feels oddly centred and sure of what he's doing, that he's helping, that he's _got this_ -

And then there's the sound of a beer bottle hitting the dry dirt and Mikey's voice whispering 'what the fuck -'

Ray and Gerard both startle. Ray half turns and then realises he's still got his fingers in Gerard so he pulls them out and Gerard immediately scrabbles for his jeans, the waistband caught somewhere around his knees. Ray steps in front of him protectively, wiping his dirty hand off on his own pants.

Mikey looks furious, and Ray can't work out why until Mikey shoves him aside and yanks at Gerard, who's got his flies zipped now but is still fumbling with his belt, and paws at the hair straggling around Gerard's collar like he's looking for something and oh, fuck, Ray was -

In the dark, and from that angle, it must have looked like Ray was fucking holding Gerard down by the neck. 

Gerard shoves Mikey off him as fast as Mikey grabbed him. 'Jesus Christ, can't a dude get fucking laid around here?' he growls. 

'He was crushing you, Gerard, I just -''

'Oh my god, fuck off, Mikey, seriously.' Gerard's got his belt done up now, and he crosses his arms in front of him. 'I need a little personal space, man.'

'Not gonna happen.'

'What, are you my chaperone now?'

As per usual when the Ways get into it with each other, they ignore everyone else in the vicinity. Ray badly wants to just, like, explain, tell Mikey that it wasn't what it looked like, and that he would never, ever hurt Gerard like that, but there's no point. He knows they won't even hear him if he speaks up right now. Eventually they'll run out of steam, and then he'll be able to say his piece.

'Guess you're not as kinky as everyone thinks you are, huh?' Gerard's saying sardonically when Ray tunes back into the bickering. 'Ever heard of -'

'If you say erotic asphyxiation I'm gonna kick your fucking ass, Gerard, seriously. I just. Fine. Whatever. Say you're into choke-sex. I don't actually care. What I care about is you having any kind of sex _outside_ while we're _on tour_ with all your underage groupies lurking around, with our fucking _guitarist_.'

'It's like, one in the morning, Mikey, the underage groupie danger is hours-of-daylight-only, and so what? Do you have a _problem_ with me and Ray fucking around?' 

Mikey squints at Gerard, and then finally looks at Ray, and squints again. 'What, apart from the fact that you're doing it in plain sight and we're all in the same fucking band and I caught you at it?' he asks, and his mouth twists like he's eaten something that tastes rank. 'No, Gerard, I don't have a _problem_. But. It's you and Ray,' he says. 

Ray opens his mouth to finally try and explain and Gerard butts in again. 'Yeah?' he says, crossing his arms. 

'You and _Ray_.'

'Wow, Mikey, is it, like, a difficult concept or something?'

Mikey rolls his eyes, which Ray picks up even in the dark because when Mikey rolls his eyes he does it so hard his head moves. It makes his glasses glint. 'It's just that you're a dude,' he says to Gerard. 'And Ray's … Ray.'

Ray can see exactly what Mikey's issue is here, and he's not wrong. 'I know it's confusing,' he says hurriedly, rushing the words out and stepping forward earnestly before Gerard can kick him in the shins or something. 'We're not - I mean. I'm just helping him out.'

'By fucking him.'

'We're not - it's not like we were having sex,' Ray points out, which he feels like he shouldn't have to, because surely Mikey saw enough to realise that. 

Gerard physically startles. 'Wait, what?' he says. 'Dude -'

'You're not - what?' Mikey stops mid-protest. They're both staring at him now.

'Not having sex. With Gerard,' Ray adds, and turns to Gerard with a pleading expression, because Gerard can help explain this, right? 

Except, Gerard's eyes are already huge with the remains of this afternoon's eyeshadow but now they take up about 95% of his entire face. 'What do you mean we're not - what the fuck, Ray, whoever gave you the sex talk did a shitty fucking job. Dude, if you don't have a medical reason to be doing it, sticking your fingers up someone's ass is having sex with them.'

He actually sounds upset. What the hell?

'But -'

'You practically had your whole fucking hand inside him,' says Mikey disbelievingly. 'I _saw_ you. How the hell is that not fucking him?'

Ray doesn't get why they're so confused. He waves his hands at Mikey, unsure. 'But I'm _not_ fucking him? Zero involvement of my dick,' he adds, just to be really extra clear.

Mikey clearly got his sex talk off the same person Gerard did, or maybe off Gerard, which … is worryingly likely, because he adds, 'Yeah, but 100% involvement of his ass, ergo, you were totally fucking him.' He squints again, and his expression finally softens a little. 'Jeez, Ray. It's not like I'm gonna go get my shotgun or anything, I just … you picked a really fucking stupid spot, for a start, and, well, I just … I thought you were.' He stops. 'Have you always been into guys, or is this new?'

Ray gapes at him. 'I'm _not_ into guys,' he says. 'Mikey, I'm straight. You know that.'

'It's okay,' Gerard starts, reaching out like he's going to touch Ray's elbow, and suddenly this isn't Mikey wanting to yell at Ray-and-Gerard, it's Mikey-and-Gerard ganging up on Ray, and he should have expected it because nothing keeps those two on opposite sides of a debate for long, but it's not fair. 

Somehow this has got all twisted up somehow, some way Ray doesn't understand, and he doesn't know how it all got so goddamn out of hand. 

'I need a fucking drink,' he says, and turns on his heel before either of them can say a word. 

***

The answer to Ray's problems hasn't turned up at the bottom of a beer yet, but he's gonna keep trying. He's about to look up and catch the barman's eye for another attempt when someone slides onto the bar stool next to him and says, 'How about I get the next one?' into his ear. 

He looks up at her, and realises he's been recognised, for once. And okay, mostly he has a don't-fuck-the-fans policy based on the high, well … jailbait quotient … but. This girl's easily his age, and she's smiling at him like she knows exactly what she wants and is pretty sure she's gonna get it, so he says, 'sure,' and smiles back. 

She seems like a really nice girl. Ray doesn't catch her name, because it's loud in this bar, but also to be honest she probably doesn't care that he doesn't know what her name is because they don't even finish the beers before she's literally dragging him out of the bar with her fingers hooked in his belt, so. Actually he's not a hundred percent sure she even told him her name.

She's got short, fly-away hair, bottle blonde, and she's got intense eyes and a Black Flag t-shirt and Ray's pretty sure she could lead him anywhere and he'd go, but out the back of the bar will do. Ray would like to be able to say that, since he became a paid musician instead of a busboy who played guitar at occasional house parties, he's hooked up in a lot fewer skeezy alleyways, but that would be a lie. 

She hooks one knee around his hip and goes straight in for his belt buckle and Ray starts to think distractedly, with his hands on her breasts, her shirt all rucked up under her arms, that kinking on semi-public wall-sex is probably like, really common in the music business. If you weren't into this shit you'd have epic fucking dry spells. 

Ray's kind of probably had a higher than average proportion of semi-public wall-sex than most of the population, he's pretty sure. It's kind of his thing. He's got this shit down. 

He's also kind of drunk.

Not too drunk to put on a condom, though, because you should never get _that_ drunk. Ray likes his dick and would like to keep it healthy. He fumbles with the wrapper and drops it by accident but whatever, it doesn't count as littering in an alleyway and he rolls the slick latex down his cock and his new lady friend hooks her other knee around his other hip and shimmies herself up and onto him. 

Fuck, it's been too fucking long. It's been long enough since he even touched his dick himself, let alone this, and it feels _so good_.

In the shitty orange light from the street lamp at the end of the alley, her eye makeup is dark and deep and Ray's kind of weak for that. And yeah, fuck off, he knows why, he knows exactly why, but there's a difference between the tight, squeezy, happy feeling you get in your chest when you see your bandmates, y'know, the dudes who're the reason you don't have to work a shitty minimum wage job any more, who're practically your brothers … and the more dick-adjacent feeling you get when a pretty girl in eyeliner has you between her thighs. 

Those are _different_ feelings and just because you've been between the thighs of one of said bandmates recently doesn't mean a fucking thing. Ray's just got a few wires crossed, that's all, and he's gonna fucking uncross them once and for all right now. 

He catches her around the waist and leans in and starts to go for it. She makes hiccupy noises and grinds into him and he takes her weight and pushes her closer into the wall so that she can rub her clit against him too. Nuzzles down til he can suck on one of her nipples through her bra, even though it puts a freaking crick in his neck, because fuck, tits are awesome, also - yup, there we go. Mmmm. 

Ray fucking loves the feeling of someone coming around him. It makes his head spin, but like, in a good way. Feels good around his dick, feels good around his fingers when he - except he's not supposed to think about that. No. Bad Ray. 

He braces himself and starts to really push, fucking to get himself off, but she's squirming under him now and it just … he can't … 

Can't stop thinking about what he's not supposed to think about, what he's forced himself to not think about, why he hasn't been able to jerk off since this tour fucking started, because he kept - Gerard, every fucking time, the way Gerard looks coming his brains out over Ray's fingers in his ass, and Ray _can't_ fucking jerk off over that, it's not okay, it's not the point, and he's not gay, he's not, he's _not_ \- 

He comes hard and breathless and with a mouthful of blonde hair, and he's not gay but he's also not drunk enough to deny that maybe he came fucking a woman, but he was thinking about a man as he did it.

***

When Ray makes it back to the bus Gerard is bundled up on a sofa in three blankets and with one of Mikey's beanies jammed down over his hair, pretending he's sketching but really, pretty blatantly waiting up to watch Ray's walk of shame. 

Ray shame-walks straight on by him without even making eye contact because he's still too tired to have a conversation about all of this shit. Maybe Gerard can pull off 'waiflike starving artiste' as a Look, but Ray can't. He needs his sleep if he's gonna be functional tomorrow.

He gets into his bunk and rolls over onto his side to face the wall, and he tries, he really does. But he stares into the darkness and his brain won't stop spinning and he can smell her fucking perfume and skin all over himself but he can also smell the funk of five guys in one metal box, the fug of sweat and stale coffee, hairspray and the pungent, skin-ruining soap from the bathroom, cigarettes and unwashed clothes, familiar as breathing, familiar as the feel of a set of eleven to fifty-twos under his fingertips. Home, in a weird fucking way. Something Ray can't afford to, doesn't want to, lose.

Some time later, Gerard stops by his bunk and whispers, 'Ray?' 

Ray doesn't say anything, pretends he's sleeping, and knows he's an asshole. It's probably karma that means he tosses and turns the whole night, and doesn't sleep a fucking wink. 

When he stumbles upright in the morning, Gerard pushes a mug of coffee he doesn't deserve into his hand.

They drive most of the morning, pitch up at the latest venue by lunchtime. They're playing late in the afternoon tomorrow, so Frank asks Ray if he wants to noodle around for a bit and Ray says hell the fuck yes, because if he can just stare at a fretboard for long enough mostly that cures all evils. 

Frank gives him fifteen minutes, which _isn't_ long enough, before he mutes his strings mid-song and coughs. 'So, apparently you need the talk about the birds and the bees,' he says, and Ray realises why Frank picked the seat between Ray and the door out of the back lounge. 'I mean, I figured you'd probably already had it, but Gee said you need a refresher and Mikey agreed.'

Ray can feel the blush rising up his entire fucking face. He can't find any words in his throat to push out in self defence, in fact, his entire throat feels like it's closing up. Is this what anaphylactic shock feels like? 

'When two people love each other very much,' Frank starts earnestly, and then stops, and shrugs, and adds, 'or are pretty fuckin' drunk, or just kinda hang out a lot until it seems inevitable, or … actually three people is okay too, four's kinda logistically tricky all at once but whatever, we'll call that the advanced class. Anyway, when some number of people have urges - wait, do I need to explain about urges? -'

'We're done here,' Ray manages to say, choking on a mixture of furious embarrassment and giggling hysteria. He puts his guitar down and stands up. 

Frank lets him past, but he catches him by the elbow before he can leave entirely. 'It's messing with your head, huh?' he says softly. 

'... what?'

'Ray. Don't give me that. I don't need details, man, I'm not asking. Just. I'm not stupid, either, and I have to work with both of you and live on a goddamn bus with both of you, and sooner or later all this sneaking around is gonna implode. Tell me the truth. You're fucking Gerard, right?'

Ray pulls free of Frank's grip like he's been burned. 'No! I'm … we're … Gerard and me -'

'It's not like I have a problem with it,' Frank says, as if that's Ray's issue. 'Hell, dude, it's the opposite. I wanna fucking hug you. I mean, y'know he used to get all fuckin' pilled up and go fuck random barflies, right? Remember how stressed-out he used to get about those shitty little basement shows? That was his stupid-ass solution.' Frank looks down at his nails. 'Back before his goddamn face was all over Kerrang!, anyway. I pulled him out of some shit you would not fucking believe, man. But we're on tour again and he's still sober and I haven't had to actually punch anyone _or_ make him go get a fucking STD check yet. So. Thanks.'

'Frank -'

Frank just ploughs on ahead. 'I'm glad he's got you, okay? That's all I wanted to say. I think, like, being with someone, or whatever, it makes all this shit easier to deal with for him, and -'

'I'm not with Gerard,' Ray snaps. 'I'm not even fucking Gerard. I'm - christ, Frank, I just, I got him off a couple of times because he was stressing out all over the place, and, and now it's like this _thing_ , like, Mikey saw us together and he thinks we're having this fucking, torrid gay romance -'

God, it's so always dangerously easy to talk to Frank. Ray can't stop the words where before he couldn't even get his throat to work, '- and I'm not gay, I'm just - I fuck girls, I'm into girls, women, whatever, and I can't - it's gotta stop. Frankie, you get it, right? I wanna help him, and this helps him, and I'm cool with it, but he's got the wrong idea, and I - I can't lead him on. It's not like I can … _be with him_ , or whatever.'

He's only fucking realising it as he says it, but it's the truth, it builds on every word as he lets them out. Whatever the fuck he's doing, it's not what he thought it was, and he can't keep going with Gerard thinking it's something it isn't. That's not fair.

Frank stands up and puts his guitar down, and tucks his hands in his pockets. 'Why not?' he asks, looking Ray straight in the eye. 

Ray resists the urge to look away. He's not ashamed. 'Because I'm straight.'

'So doing … whatever it is you do with Gee, that doesn't turn you on? You get him off, but you don't get hard over it. It's like, I dunno, a game of kickball? Playing PlayStation with him? You're not into it?'

'Exactly!' Ray says immediately. 

Frank raises an eyebrow at him.

'Well, okay, but. I don't … do anything about it,' Ray says, refusing to shuffle his feet. 'I'm not taking advantage of him. I wouldn't do that.'

Frank's mouth twists, but he doesn't say whatever it is that looks so bitter on the tip of his tongue. 

'I can't help it.' Ray rolls his eyes at Frank. 'Hey, like you've never got hard playing your fucking guitar on stage. Random boners don't have to mean anything.'

Frank snorts. 'Yeah, okay, sure. Nobody's safe from random boners, that's a fact. But you might wanna sit down, Toro, because I'm about to give you two bits of info that are gonna blow your tiny mind.'

Ray obediently sits, or at least, leans his butt against the wall of the bus. 

Frank holds up one finger. 'Fact one. I'm a fucking exhibitionist, Ray. My stage boners are like, not random at all. How the fuck have you not put that one together yet?'

Ray blinks at him, and puts a mental circle around that fact and then puts it next to the fact about the buzzing that sometimes comes from Frank's bunk, and then puts a bunch of exclamation marks next to both of those facts and shoves them into a deep, dark corner of his mind to hopefully never contemplate again. 'And … the second fact?' he manages to ask. 

Frank pats him on the shoulder. 'You can like girls _and_ boys, young Padawan. We have this thing called bisexuality now, you should look it up.'

***

The thing is.

(The thing is).

If Ray did like boys as well as girls - men as well as women, fuck, he's not in high school any more, jeez - wouldn't he have … noticed?

Although when he actually stops to try and think about it, he kinda … he doesn't think he ever exactly got an epiphany about the epic hotness of women either? He just got an epiphany about the extreme awesomeness of sex, which when you're a man is, y'know, generally advertised as something you do with women. Like, it's the default assumption.

Which … seems kind of reductive, now that he thinks about it.

Ray's pretty sure Gerard has given festival crowds lectures about this kind of shit. Maybe he should have been paying attention.

He catches himself staring at dudes like, six separate times across pits and from side-stage at shows, and in bars, over the next couple of days, until Pete Wentz catches him squinting at a guy and just like, gives him this knowing, too-solemn nod, and that's when Ray realises how fucking out of hand this has all got. When Pete goddamn Wentz is giving you the _solidarity bro_ look because you're confusedly checking out men, you are way too far down the rabbit hole.

Ray sneaks off through the maze of packing cases and gear before Wentz can, like, actually try and talk to him about this. He ducks through the crowds, makes it out through the parking lot, and actually off into the wilds of … whatever the fuck town this is they're playing in … without being followed. It doesn't take him long, thank God, to find a bar whose clientele and jukebox are too fucking old to have heard of My Chemical goddamn Romance.

He orders a beer. He stares at the beer. 

Gerard is just gonna have to … buy a dildo or something, because honest to God, Ray can't keep on like this, it's too confusing, it's too hard to explain. Too hard to justify. He's going to have to stop.

His beer is empty. He orders another beer. 

He stares at the beer.

Fact: Ray Toro has always been - has always _thought he was_ \- straight.

But also fact: Ray Toro has been doing sexual stuff with another dude. Like, definitions of fucking aside, whatever, he can't deny Gerard was … not wrong. Sticking your fingers up someone's ass to get them off is not _not_ having sex with them. 

And Ray wasn't _not_ into it. Like. There were boners.

He blinks a bit at his beer and tries to work through that again. Okay. So. Maybe he was kind of having sex with Gerard. Maybe he's been kind of having sex with Gerard all along. 

Which is, like, not really very straight. Frank, in his head, asks him again if it was just like a game of kickball, and no. No it fucking wasn't. Okay? 

Why is he making such a big deal out of this? He's always … it's never been a big deal. He's never had a problem with people having sex with people of the same gender as them. Like. Why should it start being a big deal now that he's done it? Is … is he actually homophobic? Is this him freaking out about doing gay stuff because he's like, latently homophobic? 

He stares at his beer. He picks up his beer.

He turns it over in his head for the space of however long it takes for him to drink the beer, and … no. He doesn't think so? He doesn't feel grossed out, he feels … something else. He turns it over some more. He stares at the suds in the bottom of the glass, and realises he feels … guilty.

It's just. What if it's just this? Just Gerard, for whatever reason, like, he's the one exception, and … Ray's seen how queer kids get treated, even now, how fucking awful some of them have it. It's not safe for some people to be themselves, and how is it fair if Ray gets up on this bandwagon that he doesn't really belong on and where other people who fucking do belong and _deserve_ to belong can't be? Because he's seen the press, he's seen how it gets - say him and Gerard got caught, photographed, and it came out all over the internet, whatever, yes, he'd get fucking ripped a new one by some of the press but he'd also get a shitload of kudos for it, as if he'd done it for some kind of noble reason. 

And he wouldn't be in fucking _danger_ from it, however it fell out. 

'Nice hair, man,' says someone behind him.

Ray revolves on his seat. The guy who has apparently excellent taste in hairstyles smiles at him in the way that tells Ray instantly that he has no fucking clue who Ray is, which automatically gets him a pass. 'Thanks,' says Ray. 'People keep telling me I should cut it, but,' he shrugs. 'I like it?'

'Don't do it,' says his new friend, Tom. 'I cut mine for a job interview, fucking never managed to grow it back again. Don't make the same mistakes I did, man. Fight the system!' 

'Did you get the job?' Ray asks, nodding at the bartender, who brings them another round. 

Tom grins and leans a bit closer. 'Yeah. Not sure it was worth my hair. Or my soul.'

'Corporate, huh?'

Ray's almost forgotten what it's like to talk to people who aren't musicians. He manages to dodge the question of exactly what he does, where he comes from, and why he's in town, and then they're talking about Shitty Jobs They Have Had, and then their greatest hits of stupid drunken idiocy. 

Tom's flirting like a champ. Ray's not blind, he knows the signs, plus he shares a bus with three of the biggest flirts in the entirety of the continental US. Normally with strangers he just lets it bounce off, doesn't flirt back, plays clueless straight dude and doesn't let them buy him drinks. 

He lets Tom buy him two, though, because … what if?

Maybe Ray needs to do some more research.

When Ray looks down at his watch, though, he realises it's time he was heading back, because he doesn't wanna have to do another Walk of Shame when he hasn't even done anything to be ashamed of. 'Shit, man, I gotta go,' he says, downing the last of the glass. 

'I'll walk you,' says Tom, doing the same and looking up at Ray from under his eyelashes as he tilts his beer to get the last swallow of it. If Ray didn't know what this was already, that would have tipped him off.

Ray really can't let him do it, though, unless he wants to have to explain the whole tourbus thing and confess about what he does and go through the awkward bit where Tom hasn't heard of the band but pretends he has to spare Ray's feelings. He lets Tom pull him to his feet. 'Counterproposal,' he says, nerves jangling, feeling drunk enough to be brave but not drunk enough for what he's about to do. 'I walk _you_ home.'

'Deal.'

They make it as far as three whole alleyways away from the bar before there's a convenient wall, a convenient blown streetlamp, a convenient dumpster, and Ray doesn't know which one of them starts it but they're stumbling up against that wall in that pool of darkness behind that fucking dumpster and fuck, fuck, maybe it isn't just girls he's into. 

Where the hell do you put your hands when you're kissing a dude, when they have, like, no fucking hips to speak of? Ray kind of fumbles somewhere around Tom's waist and if Tom was a girl Ray would have reached up and cupped his hands around her face on autopilot, but again, is that a thing dudes do, and then it becomes a moot point because Tom reaches up and puts his hands gently against Ray's jaw, fingers softly burying themselves in Ray's hair. 

Ray straight flat out whimpers and his lips part and Tom wastes no fucking time slipping Ray his tongue. 

Before Ray can fucking process that, or process the dizzying rush of all of his blood to his pants, though, Tom pulls back and says a bit breathlessly, 'so, do you wanna?'

'I -'

'I wanna blow you,' says Tom, looking Ray dead in the eye and licking his lips. 

Ray swallows hard, but he's kinda drunk and he's kinda overwhelmed and he's really fucking horny, and if he does this then at least he'll know, right?

'Uh, actually,' he says hoarsely, and kinda … sorta nods downwards, and Tom grins.

In the dark behind the dumpster, Ray drops to his knees. 

Tom's not like Gerard. He tangles his hands in Ray's hair, and he talks, like, dirty shit, calls Ray things that make Ray blush like burning all the way down his neck, and he's not rough but he does do that thing, push and guide, and Ray was right, he doesn't like it that much. Not enough to stop, because fuck, _fuck_ , something about being on his knees like this and making someone this shaky for him, stutter this hard for him, lose their control for him - he likes that a lot. But all the way through, mouthing at Tom's cock and sliding it into his mouth and trying to remember what he saw on that stupid video, he keeps flashing back to Gerard, his soft touches, his gentle movements. How he fucking _came apart_ from Ray doing this to him. 

Tom grinds in so hard Ray loses his breath and he comes and Ray swallows it, and leans his head against Tom's thigh and tears at his fly. Tom makes a noise and drags him back to standing. 

'Let me help,' he says, kissing Ray again sweetly, jerking him off like he wants it to be good. And it is. It's so fucking good. It's just as good as that girl the other week. It's as good as any fucking hookup Ray's ever had. 

So maybe it's not just girls, Ray thinks dizzily when they're both panting against the wall, trying to fumble themselves back together again so they can go back out into the light. 

***

This time when Ray makes it back to the bus, no-one's up, so he brushes his teeth as quietly as he can and flops into his bunk also as quietly as he can. He's kind of too drunk and too loose-limbed to try the acrobatics of taking his fucking pants off without falling over and waking everyone else up, so he doesn't try.

When he wakes up in the morning, he checks his phone and there's a text there he must have missed when it came in. It's from around when he thinks he probably made it back to the bus last night. 

He squints at it, eyes bleary. The words slowly come into focus. 

GERARD WAY says _i hope she was fuckn worth it_

***

Touring goes on, as touring does. The convoy of buses rolls on, no-one's sleeping and everyone's fucking, at least if you listen to the gossip mill, and every town they stop in gets drained of coffee and alcohol and decent weed within about three hours. The coffee is probably the Way boys by themselves, as far as Ray can tell. God knows the only time he sees Gerard without a cup in his hand is when he's got a microphone in it instead. 

Frank ricochets around bus parties, and for about two days they don't see Mikey except when he's on stage with them. Bob mostly spends his time with the tech crew, when he's not gently trying to herd the rest of them. Ray does his time at social shit, but that niggly riff from that soundcheck is still haunting him and whenever he can beg off going out he does, like tonight, and jams his headphones on and sits at his laptop with his guitar, alone on the bus, and tries to build it into something bigger. There's a song in there somewhere, he's just gotta dig it out. 

And if it keeps him away from everyone else, fine. No-one's tried to have another _talk_ with him, but he's kind of terrified to be alone with any of them in case they bust out the understanding looks. 

He doesn't want to be asked questions. He doesn't know the answers any more. He just knows that what he would have said a week ago is a lie. 

Tonight Ray managed to escape a party by pulling a Gerard - going and then leaving as soon as the others fanned out, which is kind of underhanded but he doesn't care, because apart from all the other shit, he's been chewing on the bridge for this not-quite-a-song-yet for days and every version so far hasn't quite been right but he thinks he's onto it now. He has to type his password into his laptop three times before he gets it right, because he keeps doing it too fast, too keen to get started.

He only realises he should stop, maybe, when his neck starts to twinge and he suddenly notices that he's basically hunched like Quasimodo over ProTools. Fuck. He needs to work on his posture, or something. He sits up and stretches up as high as he can, towards the roof of the bus, and feels every part of his spine pop as he settles back to normal. Yeah, no, definitely time to stop. He can't afford to fuck up his back.

When he unplugs his headphones and starts to coil the cable, though, that's when he hears the buzzing noise, the heavy breathing, and he mentally swears and goes to grab at his bag for his iPod. Goddamn Frank and his goddamn public sex thing, which Ray was so, so much happier not knowing about. But he trips over the laptop charger which has knotted itself around his guitar lead, and knocks the whole lot to the floor and the startled moan from the bunk … that's not Frank. 

Ray scrabbles around trying to untangle himself from the laptop and the headphones and pick them up off the floor and make sure nothing's broken, and from the bunks there's a theatrical fucking whimpering noise and then Gerard breathes, 'Ray, fuck, oh fuck, _yeah_ ,' and his bunk creaks hard, and -

There's a heavy thud and Gerard appears in the doorway between the bunks and the back lounge, threadbare shirt and pyjama pants loose around his hips, with something long and silicon and purple in his hand, and that's when Ray realises that this was a trap. 

'Oh, hey,' Gerard says, totally casual, as if Ray can't see the fresh, wet stain on his shirt. 'Sorry, was I too loud?'

'No, I just -' Ray starts, and stops, and stares. 

Gerard moves in closer, til Ray can feel the heat radiating from his body. 'I just figured, since apparently I'm not having sex with anyone, I'd take a leaf out of Frankie's book, and go DIY,' he says, and there's an edge to his voice, a sharp one. 

The trap has steel jaws and it closes around Ray's metaphorical leg when Gerard presses even closer and cups his sticky hand around Ray's groin. 

Ray's throat goes instantly dry. 'Frank's - ' he says, and coughs. 'I mean, I didn't know Frank had a -' 

He's probably gonna pass out soon. It can't be survivable, having every drop of blood in your body reroute to your cock in under a second. 

Gerard rolls his eyes. 'Oh please,' he says, and now he's fucking stroking Ray's dick. 'Everyone knows about Frank's vibrator.' His eyes are hot and possessive and Ray suddenly gets it, like a piledriver to the gut, that Gerard _wants_ to have sex with him. 

Except then, when Ray's hips are pumping into the air and he's so close, so fucking ready to blow, for Gerard, just for Gerard, and it's true, he can't deny it, he's hot for his lead singer, his male, penis-owning, confusing-eye-makeup-wearing lead singer, and he's gonna come in his jeans because Gerard is touching him through them - then Gerard lets go, and spins on his heel back out to the bunks.

His parting shot is, 'Just like everyone knows about your back-alley hookups.'

***

Ray's just conceded defeat at yet another round of Guitar Hero, which he really shouldn't care so much about sucking at, when Frank looks up and says, too casually, 'hey, Mikes, where's Gerard?'

Bob's disappeared with the techies yet again, but Gerard was here just like, quarter of an hour ago, Ray would swear. He hadn't been saying much, but he'd been here, sketching, drinking coffee, watching them play video games and shout at each other. 

Ray had wanted to go curl up next to him. Two weeks ago, he might have. But he's too late. He knows it. He was stupid too long, stupid enough that he hurt Gerard. He can't blame him for backing off, and he has, backed off about as far as it's possible to do on tour. It's been two days since the back lounge, the vibrator, the stain on Gerard's shirt and Gerard's hand on Ray's dick, and Gerard hasn't come within three feet of him since, which is an achievement when you live in a fucking sardine can.

And now, Gerard's just plain disappeared. 

Mikey shrugs at Frank. 'I think he ran out of cigarettes again. He's smoking like a fucking chimney this week.'

'Okay, cool,' says Frank, and no-one calls him on his Mom-like tendencies at all, but Ray's spidey-senses are tingling too. 

Ten more minutes pass and still no Gerard. They're not that far from like, at least three convenience stores. It shouldn't take this long to go out for some cigarettes. Ray looks at Frank and Frank looks at Ray and Mikey gets to his feet and says, 'we should probably split up.'

***

Two diners and two bars later, Ray finds Gerard, but he texts Frank and Mikey from a corner rather than going over himself, because Gerard is deep in conversation with some dude and what, is Ray going to just barge in like Gerard's mom and drag him out by his ear? He's allowed to go out, he's an adult. 

Gerard's drinking something dark brown in a tall glass that had better fucking be Diet Coke, or Ray will … give him a really disappointed look, probably. When he's not looking and won't see it. The guy he's talking to is kind of all over him, too, he's tall and he leans and Gerard's smiling up at him but there's something Ray doesn't like about the whole thing. He lurks and watches and tracks the level of Gerard's glass and tells himself it's not creeper behaviour to keep an eye on a recovering alcoholic who's decided to go out to a bar without telling anyone. 

And the thing is he's right but it doesn't make him feel any less of a creeper. 

Frank gets there first, out of him and Mikey, and he homes in on Gerard like a heat-seeking missile, wraps himself around Gerard's waist like an octopus, and steals his drink while offering his hand for Gerard's new friend to shake. Ray isn't sure why he still doesn't go over, but he's reassured by the way Frank doesn't react to his first gulp of the Coke, like there isn't anything harder underneath the sugar. 

Mikey materialises at Ray's shoulder a minute later. 'Oh,' he says, taking in the scene. Frank has let go of Gerard and is clearly aborting his driveby. 'Guess _that's_ why he snuck out, huh.'

'For a Coke?

Ray is the recipient of a truly brutal Mikey Way eyeroll. 'To get laid, moron.'

'To get _laid?_ ' Ray hisses, possibly a little too high-pitched. 

Mikey gives him another Look. Ray pretends to not know what it means. Unfortunately they've been playing in a band together now long enough that Mikey knows that's bullshit. 'Well, since he doesn't drink or do drugs, he ran out of cigarettes, I drank the last of the coffee and you wouldn't fucking let him have a turn at Guitar Hero, what else is he gonna do for kicks?' Mikey asks. 

Frank claps Gerard on the shoulder and peels off from the bar. Mikey waves at him before he can turn towards the door, and Frank's face lights up and he weaves his way over. Gerard's attention is already back on his new friend. 

'Well, that was fucking awkward,' says Frank when he reaches them. 'Gerard was fully putting the moves on that dude, and I just walked right in on it. Did you teach him to flirt or did he teach you, by the way?' he asks Mikey. 

Mikey rolls his eyes. 'Gross. Can we go now?'

Ray would like to go. He would like to not watch as Gerard laughs, loud and full-bodied, and puts his hand on some dude's arm, telegraphing what he's doing like he wants to be seen from space. 

And then the guy leans in and touches Gerard's face, tucks some hair behind Gerard's ear, and Gerard kind of giggles up at him but Ray can see his jaw tighten and his body go stiff for a second like he's forcing himself not to move away, and fuck this, fuck it entirely and totally. 

'Ray?'

'What the fuck, dude, you look like you're about to start freaking growling.'

'Ray? Ray. Raaay -'

Someone is snapping their fingers in front of Ray's face, but he ignores them, because he's figured out what's wrong with this scene, and it's that that's Gerard's interview-laugh. 

Ray pulls free of Mikey's hand and marches himself across the bar like a one-man rescue party. He has a great excuse lined up too, because he really is at the point with the track he's been dicking around with where he needs some lyrics, or a gibberish vocal line, or something, to harmonise around. He needs the excuse, because he knows Gerard doesn't want to talk to him right now, and that's fine, but just like Ray can read Mikey's meaningful looks he can read Gerard's fucking body language and he does _not_ want to to be that close to this guy.

The stranger spots him first, but instead of moving a step back like you normally would if someone was about to step into your conversation, he nudges closer to Gerard, and puts his arm around him. It's so fucking gross, so alpha-male territorial Ray could spit. Gerard jerks a little and then kinda force-relaxes into it. Then he spots Ray, and about seventeen different expressions cross his too-pretty face. Ray can't categorise them all. 

'Hey, dude,' Ray says, pasting a smile on his face. 'Can we -'

'I was just leaving, actually,' says Gerard. _'We_ were just leaving. Right?'

'Right,' says whoever the fuck this guy is, and there it is again, that little niggle, that radar-ping that sets Ray's teeth on edge, that says not to trust, that says don't turn your back. Like fuck Ray is letting Gerard leave with someone who's setting every warning signal Ray has on fire. 

'Me and the guys -' Ray starts again, but Gerard shakes his head. 

'You were getting on just fine without me,' he says, acid in every word. 'But the second I find my own entertainment, suddenly you want me?'

He could be talking about _you_ as in the rest of them collectively, and he could be talking about fucking Guitar Hero, but Ray knows he isn't. And Ray doesn't want him to think Ray thinks he is.

'I really do,' he says softly. 'I've - fuck, Gerard. I'm sorry, man. Please come back with us.'

Gerard bites his lip, raises his eyebrow, but he doesn't move. 

Ray tries again. 'Please. Come back with me?'

There's a long, long moment where Gerard just looks at him, and Ray figures it's too late. Gerard's gonna do this fucking asshole just to make a point and Frank's gonna have to get him to that STD clinic after all and it'll all be Ray's fault. But he can't - he can't just leave Gerard with this guy. He's not gonna go unless Gerard fucking pushes him away, because even if they're fighting, they're still friends. Ray doesn't know how not to be Gerard's friend.

So he stands there like an idiot, not sure what to do, until suddenly it isn't his decision any more.

'Hey buddy,' says the other guy, tightening his arm around Gerard. 'How about you back off? We were just leaving, like he said.'

Ray keeps his eyes on Gerard's, and hopes, and prays. _Don't do it, man,_ he thinks. _C'mon._

'Actually,' says Gerard slowly, not breaking eye-contact with Ray. He puts his now-empty glass down on the bar and squirms out from under the arm that's octopused around him. 'I think I've changed my mind.'

'Hey -'

'C'mon, Ray,' says Gerard, walking calmly away, pulling Ray in his wake. They make it two steps before there's an angry noise behind them and then Ray's shoulder gets grabbed. 

'This isn't a high school dance, buddy, you can't just cut in like that,' the stranger spits into Ray's face. He's red and he's blowing himself up like a tomcat and Ray can see the future again and it ends with him having a black eye -

\- until Mikey appears out of fucking nowhere and socks Gerard's admirer right in the face. 

That's roughly when they get kicked out of the bar, and Ray's kind of ashamed of being kicked out of a bar but on the other hand when they charge off into the night back to the bus Gerard still has his fingers around Ray's wrist so maybe Ray doesn't care that much. 

***

The only actual way to have a conversation in the bus that no-one else can hear is by text. Ray doesn't get a moment alone with Gerard anyway - first Mikey's knuckles have to be iced on a not-that-cold can of beer, and then Bob, who'd been back at the bus wondering where the fuck they'd all gone, asks what the hell happened. So Frank, with indignant interruptions by Gerard, narrates the full story of how the Three Musketeers went and rescued a damsel in distress from his own shit taste in hookups. By the time everyone's calmed down, the driver's on board and they have to get back on the road, and it's late.

They go to bed collectively, like a Boy Scout troop, which Ray almost thinks is cute. But he really wanted to like, talk to Gerard, and he can't even get thirty seconds alone with him without someone bulldozing through. So once they're all in their bunks, Ray pulls out his phone, makes sure it's on silent and the backlight is as low as it'll go, and starts a new message.

_so are we good now?_

There's an unsettlingly long wait before his phone buzzes in his hand. _we're good_

Ray can't tell from the tone, because it's a fucking text, if he should reply or not, but he's saved from the dilemma. _u fuckin confuse the shit outta me man_ is followed quickly by _but i dont wanna fight any more._

 _also thank u_ comes in while Ray is replying.

 _i never wanted to fight_ Ray sends back. _i was confused too_

 _about what you wanted_ he adds for clarity, which it doesn't actually add.

He bites his lip, and then sends

_about what I wanted_

Another long pause, but Ray can hear Gerard shifting around in his bunk. 

_what do u want?_ Again, what's the tone there? Because Ray kinda sorta knows what he wants, but he kinda sorta doesn't know if it's something he can have, if it's something Gerard wants too, after all the bullshit Ray put him through.

 _my friend back_ he types, but doesn't send. He stares at his phone. 

He stares at it long enough that the backlight goes off. He thumbs a button to get it back on, and bites his lip, and sends it, but then immediately starts typing again. He sends _I don't want to stop doing what we were doing_ before he can second-guess himself any further. 

_oh? what wre we doing?_ is what Gerard comes back with, and even through text message Ray can read _that_ tone, that's pointed. And fair.

 _having sex I guess_ he replies carefully. 

_u guess?_

Ray snorts quietly in the dark. Fucking Gerard. _don't be a dick. its not like I had previous dude experiences to compare with_

He only means it as a point in his defence, but he realises how it sounds after he doesn't get a reply for a solid minute. Fuck. Way to make it weird, Toro. 

When a reply does come it sounds … a little frantic. _wait are you saying i was your first time with a guy???_ Ray's halfway through texting back _yes_ (which takes longer than it should because at first he typed 'duh I'm straight doofus' and then changed his mind), when Gerard lands bodily in his bunk, half on top of him. 

'Are you fucking shitting me, Toro, I fucking _deflowered you_ and we both still had our shirts on?' he hisses into Ray's ear. Ray squirms underneath him, but it isn't exactly a bad experience, having Gerard's weight on top of him.

'No, Gerard, Cindy Mitchell deflowered me in my mom's Camry when I was eighteen. I wasn't a blushing virgin.'

'But I took your dude-virginity,' says Gerard, and there's like, half wonder and half horror in his voice. 'Oh my god it was terrible. _I_ was terrible. I didn't even get your fucking pants open, no wonder you didn't think it counted. I'm the most disappointing lay in the world.'

'I didn't - I wasn't -' Ray stops. He rolls Gerard off of him and traps him against the back of the bunk so he can't run away and throw himself off a bridge or something. 'How many times have I gotta tell you this? I wasn't thinking like that. I wasn't trying to get laid. It wasn't about sex for me.'

'I'm going to make it up to you,' Gerard breathes, eyes lighting up with plans. Then he pauses. 'Wait, you're using the past tense because it's different now, right? Because you do want to have sex now. Right?'

Ray knows he's blushing. Hopefully Gerard can't see it. 'Well, not right now. But. Sure. I mean. If you want to.'

'Fuck no not right now, I'm not making a man out of you in a _bunkbed_ ,' says Gerard, scandalised.

'Okay, good,' Ray says, although he was more worried about, like, fucking in earshot of the other three. Somehow it doesn't surprise him that the idea of fucking two feet away from Mikey isn't the foremost objection in Gerard's mind.

Gerard squirms a little against him, though. 'But, can I?' he says softly, and reaches up and puts his hand in Ray's hair and pulls his face down. 

It's maybe the softest, sweetest kiss Ray's ever had. 

***

Soft, sweet, stolen-time kisses are all they get for the next few days. Either Gerard is actually uncharacteristically worried about macking on him in front of the others, or he's decided Ray needs handling like he's sixteen and his daddy's got a shotgun, who knows. The sudden treat-him-right attitude is pretty cute, though. 

By the time their next hotel night rolls around, Ray's pretty brain-dead and his body is weary. His fingers know where to go on the strings without any other parts of him needing to get involved, though, which is good. He's pretty sure he could actually still play _Helena_ even if he was physically and legally dead. 

He's just got to get through tonight, and then he can faceplant a mattress and get like, eight solid hours. Gerard tugs him behind the flies side-stage and buries his hands in Ray's hair and kisses him all delicate and slow and with only the tiniest hint of tongue. Even through the exhaustion, Ray palms Gerard's ass and thinks wistfully that it's a shame they have to share rooms with the others. 

It takes about three songs before Gee is all over Frank, as usual, and Ray watches from stage left, actually watches for once, rather than letting his eyes skate over it and bending over his frets til his hair hides his face. Normally he doesn't get to see that much - they usually wait for a solo, when Gerard doesn't have to sing and all Frank has to do is chug away power chords he could play in his sleep, before it gets really into the heavy petting. But this time, they pick a verse, so Ray kinda watches, and realises how fucking hot it is when they share a microphone like that. 

He's half-hard, which isn't comfortable in tight jeans and with the heavy body of a Les Paul bumping up against you all the time, before he realises _why _it's so hot, so much better than the porn that's still lurking on Ray's hard drive. They're playing off each other, and they're enjoying themselves, because they're friends - they love each other and that's it, that's what was missing in the video. That's why it didn't do anything for him. There was nothing there to watch, just emotionless meat working through choreography.__

__But this? He loves watching this, and they can tell. Frank runs across the stage when Gerard lets him go and tackles Ray instead, and they both go down in a trail of cables and a squeal of feedback, but they come back up grinning._ _

__Gerard blows Ray a kiss, and the crowd goes wild._ _

__***_ _

__Ray's the last one to squeeze into the car to get back to the hotel after their set. This puts him jammed between the door and Frank, who immediately makes space (probably to get away from Mikey's elbows) by wiggling half his ass up onto Ray's lap. Ray slings his arm up and out of the way, behind Frank's neck and across the back of the seat. They all settle in as the car rolls away. Mikey's sweaty nape leans against Ray's wrist. Gerard, on the far side, puts his head on Mikey's shoulder and his hair brushes the tips of Ray's fingers._ _

__Ray has a sudden flash of touching Gerard's hair in … other circumstances, and has to think very hard about the pentatonic scale until the images go away, because this is _not the time_. Frank must feel him stiffen, or something, though, because he catches his eye and winks. Ray suddenly realises Gerard and Frank have been whispering in corners a lot over the past few days, since the Damsel in Distress Incident._ _

__What the fuck is Gerard planning? Frank clearly knows something._ _

__Ray's slightly on edge for the rest of the journey back to the hotel, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He figures - he _hopes_ \- something will happen, between him and Gerard, but … he's almost worried about what it might be. _ _

__When they get back to the hotel, they trail into the lobby clutching their bags like kids on a school camp. Bob goes for the desk to get the keycards, and then they all follow him to the elevator, ducklings all in a row. As they walk, they reshuffle their order, and Ray suddenly finds himself with Gerard just behind his shoulder, the back of his hand brushing Ray's as they walk._ _

__The elevator is technically large enough to hold ten people, according to the safety certificate. Five played-out musicians and their overstuffed dufflebags feel cramped, though, and Gerard's fingers are wrapped around Ray's wrist now. Ray's pulse kicks up a notch. He wishes fucking badly that they didn't have such a well-established rooming system, but it's Bob's turn for the single room and that means Ray in with Frank and Gerard in with Mikey. Changing it up now would look fucking weird._ _

__Except when they get out on their floor, Gerard doesn't let go of Ray's wrist. Bob hands out cards, and Mikey just hefts his bag higher and knocks shoulders with Frank, pushing him towards a door. Bob says, 'night, guys,' and disappears into his room ... and Ray suddenly realises they all know. And apparently they're all cool with it._ _

__Gerard twists his hand so he can slide his fingers between Ray's, and basically hauls him into their (their!) room._ _

__It takes a moment for Ray's eyes to adjust when the door closes behind him. 'So it turns out the hotel thinks candles are fire hazard, but -' Ray doesn't really take in the explanation of how Gerard got this many fucking fairy lights but that might be because he's distracted by the damage to his retinas they're causing._ _

__Also - 'Are these rose petals?'_ _

__'Uh -'_ _

__Ray stoops and picks one up. 'Do I want to know how long you spent cutting pink paper into rose petal shapes?'_ _

__'Frank helped,' is Gerard's only defense. 'Roses are really fucking expensive, man.'_ _

__Ray knows. He's done the Traditional Date many times. Well. Many proportionally to the total number of dates he's been on, anyway. He's bought roses. They are definitely really fucking expensive._ _

__No-one's ever bought him roses before. Or thought about it. Or gone to the trouble of recruiting their friends to help make handmade fucking confetti because they thought he deserved roses even if they couldn't give him any. It's possible Ray is blushing. Kind of a lot._ _

__'I just wanted to. Y'know. Do it properly,' says Gerard, shuffling his feet a bit. 'You always look out for us - for me - I just wanted to...' he shrugs helplessly, not looking at Ray. 'It's dumb, I'm sorry.'_ _

__'It's beautiful,' says Ray, which both is and isn't true. 'And it's really fucking sweet, man, I really - you didn't have to go to all this trouble.' Because it would have been trouble, he would have had to get the hotel details from Brian, and negotiate with the staff to set this up, and all the while hiding both that and the fact that he and Frank somehow found the time to cut out all these pink petals, and ... Ray's pretty sure neither he nor the sex they're hopefully about to have are worth all that. He's really, genuinely, touched._ _

__'It's your first time,' says Gerard, looking up and squaring his jaw. 'Like hell I'm gonna treat it like any other hookup.'_ _

__Ray shakes his head at him fondly. He's fucking ridiculous, but then Ray's known that for years. If he's not making an over-the-top gesture, how can you even know it's Gerard you're dealing with? 'You know I'm not really a virgin, dude. And I've already had like, half my hand up your ass and your cock in my mouth.'_ _

__But Gerard's face is mulish and a little bit sad. 'I just want it to be good for you.'_ _

__Ray reaches for him, pulls him in tight. He likes how Gerard's face always fits so well in the curve of his neck. 'Like it wasn't for you?' he guesses._ _

__'I don't even remember it,' says Gerard. 'Who knows, it coulda been great. But ...'_ _

__He trails off, shrugs, and Ray doesn't need him to say anything more to get it. He pulls back so he can look Gerard in the eye. 'Alright,' he says. 'C'mon, Gee, make a man out of me, huh?'_ _

__Gerard smacks him on the shoulder. 'Don't be a dick,' he says, but he's smiling. 'C'mere.'_ _

__There's nothing sweet and soft about this kiss. This kiss is the full Gerard Way drop-your-panties special, as far as Ray can tell, and he's breathless and shirtless before he really gets his brain back. Gerard's running his hands over Ray's bare skin by the time they break, panting, and Ray fights the urge to cross his arms in front of him, when Gerard's fingers slide over his belly and up to his chest. He's not like Gerard, all big eyes and curves and unbelievable jawline, and he's definitely not lean and pretty like Mikey and Frank. There's a reason all of the exclusive interviews with Ray Toro are with guitar magazines. He's not exactly poster boy material._ _

__'Fuck, you're hot,' Gerard whispers, though, rubbing a thumb over one of Ray's nipples, then bending and licking it. Ray's knees go kind of weak. 'God. Why aren't we lying down yet?' he says, pushing at Ray until he steps backwards and his knees hit the mattress. 'I kind of want to fucking lick you all over,' Gerard adds, and Ray flops backwards and pulls Gerard with him into a pile on the bed._ _

__'I'm still all gross from the show,' he points out._ _

__Gerard fucking rubs his face all over Ray's chest. 'Mmmm,' he says happily._ _

__'You're disgusting,' Ray informs him, but he can't help the fond tone or the way his voice cracks too high at the last syllable because Gerard has just wrenched open his belt._ _

__'Your pants are disgusting,' Gerard shoots back, which is simultaneously the worst comeback and the worst line Ray's ever heard. 'You should take them off.'_ _

__'And they say romance is dead,' says Ray, but he does sit up and help with the pants, because okay they're not Mikey levels of skinny jeans but they're not exactly baggy. Baggy jeans on stage run the risk of Frank-related mishaps of the accidental down-trou due to being climbed on kind. One audience seeing Ray's underwear was enough - he joined the tight-jeans camp after that in self defence._ _

__Gerard's expression has turned determined again though. 'Oh, you're gonna get romance, Toro. If it's the last fucking thing I do.' Then he puts his hand on Ray's dick, which is pretty far from any definition of romantic Ray's ever heard but _fuck he is not complaining_. He can't help the way his hips punch up into Gerard's touch, but then he has to frantically grab for Gerard's shirt to stop them both falling off the mattress. He manages to haul them both back up onto the bed and now Gerard is in his lap and Ray just … he just has to kiss him again, because he's breathing hard and smiling up into Ray's face, and he looks so fucking happy. _ _

__Ray is possibly addicted to Gerard's mouth, which is going to be a problem for, like, future shows and studio sessions._ _

__'We'll work something out,' says Gerard, laughing. Ray's trying to wrestle Gerard's shirt off him._ _

__'I just mean, like -' Ray doesn't know how to stop babbling. Gerard gets his head free of the shirt and shuts Ray up with another kiss. He's all warmth and soft skin up against Ray, less hair on his chest and a little bit more rib showing, still puppy fat around his hips where Ray finally puts his hands, and he's so fucking good to touch._ _

__Ray lets Gerard lick into his mouth and push him back into the comforter and pillows. He's clearly got a plan for this whole 'deflowering' thing and Ray's never been good at fighting Gerard's plans. And anyway, this one seems like it's gonna go well for everyone involved. Gerard sinks his teeth gently into Ray's bottom lip and slides his hands down to ease the jeans off of Ray's ass and then starts nipping his way down Ray's body, taking the jeans with him and leaving a little trail of haphazard pink toothmarks that fade to white and then disappear in seconds, but make Ray's skin sparkle like the fucking fairy lights they're surrounded by._ _

__'Jesus, Gerard,' Ray says, a little faintly, when he's naked over the dark blue, scratchy hotel comforter and Gerard is staring up at him from between his thighs with a wicked fucking look on his face. His face that is right next to Ray's cock._ _

__He puts his hand on it again, and Ray has to force his hips down. He's already almost panting, and Gerard gives him a considering look and then, keeping the eye contact, bends his head just a little and presses a sticky kiss to the tip._ _

__'Nnnnnnnngh,' is a pretty good approximation of the noise Ray makes. His hands fly out like he's gotta grab something to steady himself, and he wants to touch Gerard, so fucking badly, but instead he fists the bedspread. Gotta be a gentleman. _Don't be pushy, Toro,_ he tells himself frantically, as Gerard purses his lips and mouths little tiny kisses all the way down Ray's dick and then licks his way back up, teasing, fucking teasing like he's enjoying himself, like no girl has ever done when confronted with Ray like this. Ray has never in his life thought of himself as a wham, bam, thank you ma'am kind of a dude but he didn't know you could get blown this fucking slow. _ _

__'You gonna put those hands somewhere useful?' Gerard says, mouth still so close that Ray can feel his breath blow warm and cold against his skin. He reaches out and grabs one of Ray's wrists, interlaces their fingers and pushes Ray's hand into his hair._ _

__'Don't wanna be bossy,' Ray manages to say, unable to help twitching his fingers in Gerard's birdsnest of a hairdo._ _

__Something gleams in Gerard's eyes. 'I do,' he says. 'Want you to pet me while I blow you.'_ _

__Then he pushes his slick, soft mouth down Ray's cock and Ray can't help clutching at him, both hands on Gerard's head and Gerard squirming between his thighs, making the kind of noises you expect from someone eating fucking chocolate cake, not sucking dick._ _

__Ray does his best to be gentle and not hold Gerard down, not fuck up into his mouth, but Gerard's grip on him, one hand pressed flat on his thigh and the other around the base of his cock, is pretty firm anyway and, fuck, the noises he makes are obscene._ _

__Then the hand on Ray's thigh starts inching down, curves around his leg where he's got that knee pulled up, foot planted flat on the bed to give himself some leverage, and under, and oh, oh shit. All the air drops out of Ray's lungs like a weight's pressing on his chest, because Gerard's fingers are flirting around Ray's hole, damp with Gerard's spit from where he's drooling all over Ray's cock, and shit, shit, fucking -_ _

__It feels _so good,_ and Ray wasn't expecting it and he wasn't expecting to like it this much, but all Gerard is doing is just … stroking at him, and it's making him sweat and shake and want, want so fucking hard._ _

__He's gonna come soon, can't hold himself back with the way Gerard is all wet and warm around him, touching him in this new way. He tugs at Gerard's hair. 'I'm - Gee, I'm gonna,' he whispers dizzily, and he wants it so bad, wants to come in Gerard's mouth, that when Gerard pulls off and lets go of him, burying his face in Ray's thigh, he cries out, hungry and disappointed._ _

__'Shhh,' says Gerard, pulling himself back up Ray's body and kissing him and kissing him, quick, open-mouthed touches that do nothing to ratchet down that desperation. 'Got something better,' he says. 'Just let me get my fucking pants off,' he adds, laughing into Ray's throat and wrestling with his jeans. It seems to take him ages to get them past his hips, but then he's kicking them off, flailing when they get stuck around one ankle. Then he falls back into Ray's arms. 'You just gotta be patient,' he says._ _

__Ray realises why it took Gerard so long to get his jeans off when he flashes Ray a sight of the tube of lube in his hand. He kneels up over Ray, clicks the cap off the lube, makes a fucking show of drizzling it on his fingers and rubbing them together, and Ray's breathless, already widening his thighs, his skin remembering where Gerard's fingers were just before -_ _

__And then Gerard reaches back around behind himself, and Ray realises. And - fuck, he wants whatever Gerard wants, and _God_ does he want to fuck Gerard, wants to feel him come around his cock, wants to find that good angle and make him hiccup and whine and lose it all over himself the way he did on Ray's fingers, but … but if this is supposed to be Ray's first time, or whatever … he wants something else. _ _

__'Wait,' he says, almost choking the words out._ _

__Gerard stops, and the panic in his eyes is almost comical. 'What's - are you okay?' he says. 'Oh god, I'm rushing you, aren't I? Fuck. You can't let me pressure you into stuff, Ray, you gotta tell me if I'm going too fast for you -'_ _

__Ray shakes his head. 'No, no,' he says, catching Gerard's wrist. 'I just. Can we.'_ _

__'Can we what?' Gerard asks. He leans down, looking Ray intently in the eye. 'We can do whatever you want, Ray, just ask me.'_ _

__Ray pulls Gerard's hand, all slick and wet and perfect, down between his legs. He swallows hard. 'Can you fuck me, please?' he asks, and he makes sure he says it clearly and he holds Gerard's eyes the whole time, but he can't seem to make his voice go above a whisper, or not do that rasping thing._ _

__Gerard's eyes shiver shut and he bites his lip white for a moment. When he looks at Ray again there's something burning fucking hot in his expression. 'Fuck yes,' he says. 'We can do that.'_ _

__He urges Ray over onto his belly, pulls his hips up. 'Goes easier this way,' he says. 'Angle's better. But you gotta tell me how it feels, okay? I wanna hear you, Ray. I gotta know it feels good, that I'm not hurting you, that I'm making you feel good. Promise?'_ _

__Ray nods, grateful for the curtain of his hair that hides his face. He doesn't know if he could do this with Gerard watching him with those knowing eyes. He sees a lot, Gerard does. He sees too much sometimes._ _

__His fingers find Ray's hole again, wet this time, soft-feeling, and he presses just a little with the tip of one and then eases back. Presses again, eases back, rocking against Ray's ass, smearing the lube around until Ray's making tiny, huffing little moans through his nose and trying hard to push back into Gerard's never-firm-enough touch. His knees spread wider and fuck, he just wants to get some purchase._ _

__Gerard's other hand wraps around his hips to steady him, and Gerard says, in a low voice, 'yeah, okay, you're ready, aren't you?'_ _

__'So fucking ready,' Ray pants. 'Please, Gerard.'_ _

__'I got you,' Gerard says. 'Hey. Hey, I got you,' and he keeps murmuring reassurances and nonsense and stupid, tender things into the sweaty skin of Ray's shoulder as he slides his finger into Ray's ass._ _

__Ray's elbows almost give out under him. It shouldn't feel like that, surely, it shouldn't feel like so much, it shouldn't feel like such a big deal. It shouldn't feel so good. Gerard fucks him gently with it and Ray shudders and his body makes noises he never gave it permission to and when Gerard starts to pull back he throws his head back and protests it, doesn't want to lose that feeling, not yet, he's not ready._ _

__'I know,' Gerard soothes. 'Hey, big guy. I know. Trust me, yeah? Just trust me,' and then Ray's empty again for a too-long second before Gerard comes back with - 'that's two,' he says, easing them against the hot clench of Ray's ass. 'You want two?' he asks._ _

__'Yeah,' says Ray, shaky. 'Fuck me, Gerard,' he says as Gerard starts to push. 'Fuck me, god, fuck me, _fuck me_ -'_ _

__It's spilling out of him, the plea, the desire, a desire he's never had before today but then again he never knew it was an option and fuck, maybe he should have let Frankie give him the fucking sex talk after all -_ _

__Gerard crooks his fingers sharply and Ray's brain disintegrates. 'I'll tell him you said that,' Gerard growls happily. 'I'm sure he's full of - fuck Ray, there, there you go - helpful advice.'_ _

__Ray flails around behind himself with one hand until he finds Gerard to smack him, more by luck than anything else. It's pathetic, what he's reduced to, a fucking lump of shivering _yes_ with Gerard's fingers in his ass. 'Shut up,' he manages. 'Need you to - please, Gerard? Want you.' God, he's pitiful. _ _

__Gerard's mouth leaves a hot print on his shoulder when he kisses him there again though, and he doesn't say a thing, just pulls free and there's a crinkling condom-wrapper noise, and Ray's brain blurs in relief at the same time as it whines in animal disappointment._ _

__His hands are being urged up to hold onto the headboard, and Gerard drapes himself over Ray's back, buries his nose against the nape of Ray's neck and breathes for a second. Then there's pressure again, good, perfect, hot pressure that makes something liquid happen to Ray's spine, and Gerard pushes home._ _

__Ray's lungs rumble, the noise he makes is so low, octaves deeper than anything he makes normally, straight into the bass register. 'Oh god,' he chokes. Gerard freezes, starts to pull back. 'No, no, no, I didn't mean - Gee, please, don't - feels so _good_ ,' he babbles, and Gerard's arms wrap around him, pull his face around for an awkward, tight-angled kiss that leaves Ray breathless, full and throbbing everywhere. _ _

__He gets it now. Why Gerard wanted this, kept wanting it, kept letting Ray do it even though Ray was being a fucking dick about everything else, because he was an idiot. Ray drops his head and rolls his hips back into Gerard and knows, the same way he knew when Gerard first picked up a microphone in front of him, that this isn't the last time they're gonna do this._ _

__Gerard notches into him, plants his knees and fucks _up_ somehow, changes the angle and Ray's set alight from the core of him outwards, burning in his veins, a fucking addiction like he's never had before, to the fullness, to the fucking, to Gerard. To the pink paper petals all over the floor, and the burn in his thighs, and the fairy lights some poor maid had to string all the way around this room because Gerard wanted Ray to have _romance_. _ _

__'Gonna, gonna -' he pants, so far gone he's already on the other side of control, and Gerard straightens up and grabs him by the hip and the cock, jerks him off raw and so fucking good, slams into him so hard he sees stars and comes what's left of his brains out all over the staticky comforter._ _

__'Oh Ray, oh, oh fuck,' Gerard groans. _'Fuck -'__ _

__The feeling of someone coming in you is as good as the feeling of someone coming around you. Ray collapses into the bed, his own come smearing under him, and Gerard curls up around him, hitching his hips until he can pull out without detaching his mouth from Ray's shoulder. Ray doesn't know what he does with the condom, doesn't care, just lets Gerard spoon him, and melts into sleep._ _

__***_ _

__Ray wakes up when his jeans hit him in the face._ _

__'Bus call, bitches,' says Frank. 'Mikey's getting coffee, Bob went for donuts, and I'm here to make sure you're both wearing pants when they get in so you don't scar them for life.'_ _

__Ray throws the jeans back at Frank and staggers off the mattress to the bathroom. Frank's seen his bare ass before, he can deal. Ray needs a piss. Gerard is only just starting to stir but then again it takes a full mariachi band to wake Gerard. Even if there's coffee, you still need at least a kazoo player._ _

__'Whoa, Toro, you're walking kinda funny there,' Frank says, dodging flying denim. 'Did Gee finally make a man out of you last night?'_ _

__'Why, you lining up to be next?' Gerard asks raspily from the bed. Ray doesn't hear what happens next because he shuts the bathroom door firmly and gets down to business emptying his bladder, but when he gets out of the bathroom Gerard has Frank in a headlock._ _

__'I hope Frank has a safeword,' Ray says calmly, pulling his jeans and a shirt on._ _

__'I let you room with this kid for one night and suddenly he knows what safewords are,' Frank accuses Gerard. 'He was sweet and innocent yesterday!'_ _

__But after coffee and donuts, and about a hundred miles further down the road, Frank and Ray are in the back lounge of the bus noodling around on their acoustics as usual. Over the sound of their playing they can hear the noise of Gerard, Mikey and Bob playing Gran Turismo and yelling about cheating. It's … domestic. Their brand of domestic, anyway. Tourbus domestic._ _

__It's nice._ _

__Frank looks up at Ray and smiles. 'I'm glad he's got you.'_ _

__***_ _

__Another Youtube moment of a Frank-and-Gerard stage-kiss leads to another awkward interview question, leads to another round of this fucking 'well at least the lead guitarist is appropriately hairy and hetero, haha right' bullshit, and, no, y'know what? Ray's done with it._ _

__He clears his throat, in the silence where they're all supposed to chuckle and none of them do. Then he says, as calmly as he can, 'Actually, I'm bisexual.'_ _

__The interviewer actually physically chokes, which is weirdly gratifying. Ray can feel the blush marching up his neck and cheeks, but he doesn't break the eye contact he's making with the guy. The cameras in front of him, which he's only just started to get used to, feel suddenly like gaping black holes again._ _

__There's an intake of breath from one of the cameramen. Mikey, off to Ray's left, snorts his dry little snort, like _oh here we go_. Frank's hand comes up to thump Ray gently in the shoulder, approving, supportive, and just that little bit aggressive, like Frank's got his back if they need to throw down over this._ _

__Gerard just looks at Ray sideways, and smiles. Ray's heart does something weird and good and squeezy._ _

__'It's not that big a deal,' Ray says, when the interviewer doesn't pick back up again. 'It's not like it has anything to do with how I play guitar.'_ _

__The guy rallies. He straightens and looks Ray squarely in the eye like he thinks this is some hard-hitting talk show interview instead of a five minute MTV 'candid'. 'So why come out with it now?' he asks._ _

__'Because you brought it up,' says Ray flatly. 'I'm just correcting a misconception.'_ _

__There's an awkward burning silence, and then the interviewer laughs. 'So does this mean we're going to be seeing even more of this kind of thing from you boys on stage?' he asks._ _

__Ray doesn't know what to say, but Gerard slides in easy as anything. 'Nah,' he says, smirking at Ray briefly and then engaging maximum awkward flirt levels with both barrels aimed at the interviewer. 'Ray's too busy shredding to fuck around. But I'll tell you what, now that his secret's out. Offstage? He's the best fucking kisser in the band.'_ _


End file.
